


Magnificent Seven Ficlets

by Todesengel



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF, Magnificent Seven AU: Steampunk!Seven, Other, Slice of Life, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 21,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assorted Mag7 ficlets written for various prompts. Characters and prompts given in chapter titles. Stories are intended to stand as stand alone works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Buck, "I was a lawman once" (OW, pre-canon, gen)

Buck's one and only brush with the right side of the law began and ended in Mason, back in '66, when Dick Mason was trying to found a town and Buck was trying to convince Miss Susanne to take a nice little stroll in the moonlight with him. Of course, Miss Susanne, being a bright and pretty young thing, saw right through Buck almost immediately (Buck managed to snag a kiss or two in a barn before Miss Susanne's revelation) and told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn't going to be seen stepping out with him until he'd cleaned himself up and got a proper job.

The cleaning weren't hard – Buck did enjoy a nice bath whenever he could afford it – but the job? Hell, he wasn't much good for nothing but riding and fighting, and he made a pretty good living being a hired gun at that. But Miss Susanne said that being a hired gun didn't count because that was no kind of a living and didn't bring in enough money to feed a family.

Anyway, Mason was offering $20 a month to act as the sheriff of his new little town, and Buck figured that shiny little star he got would work wonders to melt Miss Susanne's icy walls (it did, but not nearly as well as he'd hoped).

'Course Buck's luck being what it was, turned out Mason was too poor to buy a buffalo turd fire, let alone pay him for a month of work, _and_ all the women in his proposed town were either old, married or ugly as sin. And even the ugly ones had beaus.

In the end, Buck lasted as the official sheriff of Mason for all of five days, before he had to leave (there was a misunderstanding relating to Buck's purely friendly attentions to Mason's pretty little daughter who'd rode into where the town was going to be the day before, like a breath of fresh air), two jumps ahead of Mason and his shotgun. But that was okay, because Buck had never been one to set down roots – especially somewhere where the roots were still being set – and besides, who else was going to accompany Miss Donna all the way to Carson City?


	2. Vin Tanner: Best Damn Whore in the West (OW, gen-ish)

Vin figured out he was a bit different from most other folk when he was 16 and stopped for the night in the same town as Pony Bob, who decided the greenhorn needed to be made into a man – can't have no boys riding the Express, right? And apparently the fact that Vin had managed to live to 16 without a Ma or Pa or, hell, even an uncle to care for him didn't make him a man in old Pony Bob's eyes because next thing he knew, he was being taken into a room above the saloon by one of the girls and her hands were on his belt. And he knew what he should be doing, knew how this sort of thing went, at least according to the stories the other riders told him, what he'd heard 'round the campfire. Hell, what he'd seen in the alleyways of some of the rougher towns where the saloon was just one story.

So he did it, mostly. Because Pony Bob was drunk and shouting at him to be a man, and Vin knew the importance of having a man's reputation.

He did it, but it weren't…well, it weren't like that time he and Johnny Rivers had gotten drunk one night and got handsy with each other. And it definitely weren't like the time he'd gone into White Hawk's tent and the old injun took him in his mouth and –

'Course, no time was like that time.

Anyway, he got to talking to the girl, after, found out her name was Amy and she was from some small town in Okalahoma. That she'd come out West looking for a better life. That she made decent money being a whore, and the big fella downstairs kept her and the other girls from getting beat.

And he remembered Amy and the way she'd gleamed like gold, right after the last bounty he went after damn near killed him. And he thought "Hell, why not?"


	3. Vin, Ezra, Reaction to Jock Steele's book (OW, gen)

He recognizes the book immediately, what with that picture on the front of it, even if he don't know what the words say, precisely. And while he ain't never been one for reading, he'll admit he's a mite curious about what's being said about him.

He thinks about asking one of the others to read it to him – Josiah, maybe – but decides against it. They don't need to know what don't concern them. Anyway, he figures if he waits long enough a copy's bound to get 'round to Ezra and Ezra wouldn't be able to keep his craw shut even if it got kicked in by a mule.

And, sure enough, when he makes his way into the saloon, there's Ezra holding court, the book in one hand and a shot of whiskey in the other.

"'His gold tooth gleamed like a diamond in a coal mine and the temptation of Eve shone from his eyes,'" Ezra reads and then he tosses the shot back and throws the book down. He paces to the bar to get another shot and then comes back to the book. "I've been called a right number of things over the years, but 'temptation of Eve'? That's a slur upon my good name. And what's more, it's just plain awful writing."

Vin tilts his hat down to cover his smirk and settles in to listen.


	4. Josiah, Confession (OW, pre-canon, gen)

The last time Josiah went to confession he was twenty-seven and his sister had just killed their father. He still had the old bastard's blood under his fingernails and when he dipped his hands into the basin of holy water to bless himself the rusty specks swirled out into trails of pale pink.

They reminded him of the koi he'd seen swimming in that geisha's garden back in Kyoto.

Vista City was a damn long way from Kyoto.

"Father," the abbess said, breaking his reverie. "Will you hear our confessions?"

"I ain't no father," Josiah said, and looked down at the pink-tinged basin and up at the plain crucifix. Two fathers -- two bastards -- who set impossible standards that their children could never hope to meet. Well he hoped his fathers were happy now – one child mad, the other maddening.

"Leastways, not that kind, anymore."


	5. Vin, Good pair of boots (OW, pre-canon, gen)

The way Vin sees it, there are three things a man should always have: a good gun, a fine horse, and a damn good pair of boots. And iffin' a man's reduced to just one of them things, Vin figures boots is what you ought to hang onto. After all, a man's always got his legs to fall back on when he ain't got a horse, and it's no good havin' a gun iffin' you can't stand up and shoot.

Unfortunately for him, the three men who just bushwacked him knew that too.

So now he's got no horse, no gun, and his boots are riding off into the sunset on the feet of some other man. Out of all the predicaments he's gotten himself into over the years, this surely ain't one of his better ones.

Vin sighs, a little, and takes the lay of the land. In the distance he can see what looks like buildings – a township maybe, or one of the larger mining camps.

At any rate, it's bound to be a place where a man can get a decent pair of boots.


	6. Ezra and Buck, Smoking (OW, gen)

"Gentlemen. GENTLEMEN," Ezra says, raising his hands for quiet. It doesn't work, but Ezra does it anyway – it's all part of the show, all part of the con, the smoke, the mirrors, the razzle dazzle. Act as if you control the crowd and the crowd will be controlled. At least that's what Mother always said, and she surely knew how to control a crowd. "I realize we do not see eye-to-eye on this issue but—"

"Don't see eye-to-eye?" Buck laughs, loud and brassy. "That's one way of puttin' it Ezra."

"Oh, well, please, Buck. Do tell me how you would describe this little contretemps?"

"They want to tar you blacker 'n a kettle in a coal mine, Ezra."

"As colorful as ever, Mr. Wilmington. I do realize the gravity of our situation—"

"Our?"

"MY situation, then," Ezra says as he triggers his derringer's rig. "I propose we deal with it, post haste."

"Well shoot," Buck says, his gun appearing in his hand as if by magic. "Now you're talking my language."


	7. Vin and Nathan, Scars (OW, gen)

He sees them when he's patching up Vin's arm – long thin lines, purple at the edges but shiny white in the middle. They crisscross his back up at the shoulders: narrow then wide then narrow again.

He knows what makes those kinds of marks.

"You done yet?" Vin's question is brusque, a challenge. And there's…something in his tone. It's not shame. Or anger – though there's anger there, just not from the scars. Not the kind of anger Nathan feels when he sees the scars on his own back. Vin's anger is something deep and personal, anger at this…intrusion. Anger that this secret came out by necessity, not choice.

Nathan looks away from the scars and finishes with his splint.

"Yeah," he says, handing Vin his shirt. "I'm done."


	8. Josiah, Good omen (OW, pre-canon, gen)

He saw the sign on the third day, a brilliant shaft of sunlight that pierced through the lowering clouds to shine only on the ruined church. And maybe it was a sign because he was wandering in the wilderness and was looking for something – anything – to be his guide. And maybe it was a sign because it was the will of God that His rudderless priest command His shattered boat. And maybe it was a sign because after three days of riding, his ass was sore and his horse was tired and there was a well in that little courtyard in front of that ruined church and right now he didn't care if that made the water any holier than any other water out here in this dry and barren land.

And maybe it wasn't a sign at all, wasn't anything more than what it looked to be: an abandoned church in the middle of nowhere, as ruined and forsaken by God as he was.

And maybe that was the truth of all his wandering – that there was no God, no holiness beyond the miracle of life, no sanctity beyond the barrenness of weathered stone.

Josiah hitched his horse to what was left of a choir rail and looked around. The harsh sun left no shadows on the broken stones and made the world outside this little ruined nave look doubly gray.

The water from the well was musty but cold. He drank long and deep and tasted nothing beyond disuse.

Well.

Maybe he'd stay here for a while.


	9. Nathan, First love as an adult (OW, pre-canon, gen)

It's dark in the belly of the steamboat. Dark and damp and it smells of river mud and river death. Nathan can hear the slow creak of the paddle wheel, the hiss of steam and, far, far away, the sound of white folks havin' a mighty fine time.

He wonders if them rich bastards know what their fancy steamboat's really used for. Wonders if they know there's three niggers in the belly, waiting for the whistle blow for Cairo.

Ain't far now, he reckons.

It's dark in the belly of the steamboat, and he can't tell how much time has passed. Ain't no call for lights down here, down in the muck and bilge. He closes his eyes and holds tight to the light he remembers, to the hope that never died yet, no matter how many beatings he was given.

He don't pray, though. Praying is something the white folk do, and them as wants to be white, wants to be caged. He ain't never gonna be like them.

Ain't never gonna be like his daddy.

The paddle wheel creaks. The riverboat rocks. The white folks laugh and gamble high above and then, through it all, a whistle shrieks. The riverboat's motion changes, and there's another shrieking whistle. Another hell of a hullabaloo.

And then silence.

Silence except for the soft groans of the ship settling. The distant noise of port. The sounds of a mighty queen heading for her righteous rest after a long day's work.

It's still dark in the belly of the boat.

And then there's light.

A crack in the floorboards, a shine of a dark lantern, and then a voice calling out, "C'mon now. Softly like."

The three of them descend onto a smuggler's raft, and Nathan's so dazzled by the brightness of the world after what seemed forever in the dark that he can't see the face of the man poling the raft. Can't see the point where he stops being a slave and becomes a freeman.

The stranger who rescued him poles the raft into a small cove and Nathan steps off onto free soil. He takes his first breath of freedom and though it stinks of river mud and river death he breathes deep and long and in that moment he feels nothing but love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Look Ma! I done (internet based) research!**
> 
> Ok, a bit of an explanation here. We know Nathan's family was sold to a slave owner in Alabama when he was 7 (although he was probably older if we're ever to reconcile the canon inconsistencies about his age). Other than that, we have no real concrete evidence on where Nathan was between age 7 and his early 20s, other than the fact that he worked on a plantation and remained with his father until his escape [1]. Because the odds of a successful escape would drastically decrease the further south he was located, and because he lived/worked on a plantation where the master was physically present, I've placed his slave home in Northern Alabama, specifically near Decatur [2]. Now I like to think that after he escaped, he made his way to Memphis and slipped onto a steamboat heading North. This makes the most sense to me because it'd be a faster method of getting to a free state and he wouldn't have to make his way across Tennessee (skinny state though it may be) and part of Kansas to get to Illinois. It also makes sense to me because Nathan would be less likely to be noticed (and therefore captured) in the bustle of a fancy riverboat preparing for embarkation from a busy city port than he would making his way across land during a time of heightened national tension – especially if he made his way onto a boat with a primarily black crew.
> 
> ++++++  
> [1]Note that I'm basing his age at the time he escaped off of Nathan's statement that he was born in 1839 in conjunction with Rick Worthy's comment in an interview that he saw Nathan as being a freeman for 11-12 years -- although it's not clear whether Rick Worthy meant Nathan had been a freeman for 11-12 years at the start of the show or that he'd reached 12 years of freedom by 1872. I'm assuming he's been free for 11 years at the start of the show, primarily because as hard as it would've been for a slave to escape from Alabama prior to the Civil War, I imagine it would have been twice as hard after – unless, of course, Nathan was sent to the front lines and escaped from there. But that doesn't jive with the statement Nathan makes to Obidiah in "The Trial" ("Well, Daddy, you didn't have to stay. You could've come with me.") – there's no way for Obidiah to escape with him if Nathan was sent to the front lines and escaped from there. So assuming he's been free for 10 or 11 years in 1870, that'd make him either 20 or 21 at the time of his escape. I'm using the date Nathan gives us (1839) as opposed to the date Obidiah (implicitly) gives us (1846) because if Nathan was 26 in penance, and escaped from slavery before the official start to the war (so sometime in 1860 or earlier) he would have been 14 at the oldest.
> 
> [2] Although Nathan says he learned to fence on a plantation, the fact that he had a personal – if not very good – relationship with his owner, and the fact that his father survived into old age, leads me to believe that (a) Master Jackson did not run a cotton plantation in the deep south (mostly because he was actually present on the plantation – which from what the internets tell me, was not common on the Deep South plantations – and because I strongly doubt he would have pulled a healthy slave off of cotton farming to be a fencing partner) and (b) Master Jackson lived somewhere where he'd have the need of good fencing skills (for duels and the like). So: Decatur, Alabama – far enough north to make running away a viable possibility, plus on a major riverway, which would give Nathan the idea for stowing away on a steamboat to escape.


	10. Chris/Ezra, Legend (OW, teen-ish)

The first rumors are started by a couple of the younger lasses about town. It's entirely scandalous so of course it spreads like wildfire, and Ezra hears it not two days after young Henrietta Wilcox first whispered "I wonder if it's really that big" to Charlotte Hayes.

"Well," Gloria Potter asked him. "Is it?"

"Is what?" Ezra replied, though he knew, of course, exactly what they were referring to. It was hard to miss Chris's…healthy virility, especially in those pants he wore. Still, he was feeling obstinate today, and he wished to hear Gloria Potter actually come right out and ask him if Chris's cock was truly as large as it appeared to be. But Gloria just blushed, then gave him a stern stare – as though it were somehow his fault that she had nearly been indiscreet – and bustled away down main street towards her store.

"What'd she want to know?" JD asked.

"Oh, she was merely curious if Chris's reputation was as legendary as it appears to be."

"Shoot, I coulda told her that," JD said, and Ezra nearly spat out the beer he'd just supped, though he knew that JD couldn't possibly know what had been asked. Still the thought of JD with Chris…It made him shudder, made his blood run cold; and made him uncomfortable in a way he couldn't rightly explain. "Everyone knows Chris Larabee's the best there is."

Vin eyed JD from under the wide brim of his hat then looked at Buck, eyes twinkling with mirth. "You want to be the one to 'splain this to him?"

Buck grimaced then stood. "Well, reckon I should."

Vin grinned and settled back down into his chair, and that appeared to be that.

And yet, Ezra couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd noticed Chris's frequent tendency towards arousal early on in their acquaintance. He'd thought it peculiar, at first, and then amusing, and then he'd stopped thinking on it at all – it was just a part of who Chris was, much like the pink bandanas were a part of who Vin was. That Chris wore absurdly tight pants and apparently eschewed drawers was merely an…eccentricity. Nothing more. Certainly nothing that Ezra need concern himself with.

Certainly not.

But that didn't explain why he suddenly found his eye drawn more and more to Chris's proud member. His fixation was…unusual, and not simply because until now he had always been his mother's son: sex was a weapon, not something to be enjoyed simply for itself. And there was no gain in seducing Chris; there was no gain in seeing if Chris's cock would grow even more outside the confines of cotton and wool.

Except. Well. Perhaps there _was_ some gain to be had. Yes, if he seduced Chris – if he satisfied the curiosity that had begun to plague him as badly as it plagued the town – then Chris would…what? Would be more lenient? Hardly likely. No, a single encounter wouldn't be enough to ensure leniency on Chris's part. He would need to play the long game here, force Chris to need him, to want him, to love him.

A long con – but how to con Chris? Subterfuge had never worked on him before. Honesty may be the best approach, but which truth would he spin? Which face would he present?

It was a puzzle, and while Ezra normally enjoyed the puzzle of humanity – the game of finding out what made a person tick – he was…frightened to play this game on Chris. Frightened not only of what he might find – for Chris was a man with a darkness inside him as deep as any one of them – but of what might happen. Failure was not an option here; to fail now would mean more than a few nights in prison or tar on his clothes.

Ezra twisted the puzzle around in his hands, in his mind, shifting each moving part, prodding each known fact. And yet no solution appeared before him. No easy answer, no edge to exploit. He had no options beyond, perhaps, the most obvious one. And perhaps that was the answer after all.

And so he rode out to Chris's place one day – unsure of what he was doing, but knowing that it had to be done if he were to go on living – and said, simply, "Is it real?"

Chris grinned at him and pulled Ezra's hand down, pressed it hard against the thick length of his cock.

"What do you think?" he said.


	11. Chris/Ezra, Buck Finds Out (OW, gen-ish)

Buck is untacking his horse when he first notices that something just ain't right in the Livery. Too much hay drifting down for it to be the wind, and there's a funky sort of smell – like someone just dumped a bottle of neatsfoot all over the floor. He takes his saddle to the rack and as he walks, he glances up at the hayloft. Ain't unusual for couples to go a-courtin' in here, after all. Damn stupid place to do it, he reckons, but then again, he ain't twenty-two no more and he don't find the idea of hay in the unmentionables as much of a turn on as he used to. Ain't no motion, though, so he reckons he's just imagining things – maybe it's Nathan walkin' bout and knocking some of the hay down – and he finishes putting all his tack away and filling his horse's manger with hay. He's just about to leave when he hears a small noise – like a sneeze quickly stifled – and he looks up just in time to catch the flash of a red jacket.

Well now. Ain't too many folk wearing red jackets round here, he reckons. And now that he thinks on it, there ain't been too many women to catch Ezra's eye, either. He reckons its his solemn duty to find out just what kinda woman Ezra's taste run to – so he can warn the rest of 'em off, of course.

He walks to the exit with loud, clomping steps, then pulls the heavy barn door shut. He takes off his boots and sneaks back to the ladder up to the hayloft and hides in an empty stall. For a long moment the only sounds in the Livery are those of the horses sighing and shifting and eating their oats. And then, just as Buck's about to lose his patience, Ezra says, "I still don't see why we need have our tryst here. We both have rooms in town."

"Yeah, and everyone knows we got those rooms," Chris says back, and Buck can feel his mouth drop lower than it did the time a mule kicked him in the fork. "You want JD interruptin' us again?"

Ezra snorts, a noise half-amusement, half-agreement. "I suppose not. But really, Chris. A hay loft?"

"Beats a hay stack," Chris says, and then, "we could always stop."

"That is a truly terrible thing to say, Mister Larabee," Ezra says, and then there's the noise Buck knows so well – that sound of kissing and flesh on flesh and the rustling of clothes.

Buck shuts his mouth. Well, that weren't at all what he expected. 'Course, Ezra never does anything anyone expects, and Chris…Shoot, Buck reckons he ain't got no call to tell Chris what his business is. Buck don't get it, but Ezra ain't bad looking as these things go.

'Cept when he wears a dress, a-course.

Buck gets to his feet as quiet as he can and turns to exit the stall. His foot comes down in an abandoned feed bucket and he windmills his way out the stall door to land hard on his ass in the middle of the Livery aisle. All around him horses neigh at the sudden noise and Buck considers making good on his escape. But his damn foot is really well wedged into that bucket there and besides, there's more rustling from the hayloft above as Chris's head appears over the edge.

"Buck," he says.

"Chris."

"You spying on us?"

"Little bit," Buck says, grinning up. "Thought maybe Ezra'd discovered what joys women bring."

"Callin' me a woman, Buck?"

"Nope." Buck pulls his foot out of the bucket and stands up. "You ain't the one who wore that damn dress."

"Mister Wilmington," Ezra says, his head now appearing beside Chris's. "If you do not retract that slur –"

"Shoot, Ezra, I don't mean it like that. 'Sides, a woman is a right beautiful thing. Delicate and pure like the driven snow. Reckon you're 'bout as pure as the snow behind a saloon alley." He grins at the both of them and tips his hat. "Now you two love birds just go back to your cooin', y'hear? I'll just go stand guard, make sure you two have time to…adjust yourselves"

"I do not 'coo'," Ezra mutters. "Doves coo. I, sir, am no dove."

"Nope," Chris says as he pulls Ezra back away from the edge. "You're many things, Ezra, but not a dove."

"Damn straight," Ezra says, before he lets Chris kiss him into submission.


	12. Casey, "The Sound of Music" (OW, gen)

Casey remembers her Ma and Pa a little. They died when she was real young, back when Nettie's husband was still alive. She remembers Ma much more than Pa, 'cause she was just a baby when Pa died in that flood. But she remembers talking to Ma, sort of, and she remembers that Ma had hair the color of good hay, and that the one thing Ma loved the most was that music box.

Pa had given it to her on their wedding day, she said. Back when she and Pa still lived in the Old Country and Pa was learning how to make singing birds. Ma always told her it was a symbol of hope, even if that hope didn't pan out, and Pa went bankrupt 'cause all the little boxes he'd planned on selling in Boston and New York and Kansas City got lost in a storm. And anyway, people didn't want to buy singing birds that just popped up out of a little box – they wanted the birds to pop out of guns, or fly in little gilded cages.

So Pa never did end up making his boxes, 'cept for this one, which had survived a sea voyage and a wagon train and Indians and fevers and floods and bears and it still sang as sweetly as the first day Casey had ever heard it.

She don't wind it much, though, 'cause that'll wear out the springs and there ain't a soul around who'd be able to fix the little box if it broke. 'Sides, she's usually too busy helping out on the homestead to do something silly like listen to a music box, and anyway there're plenty of real birds who sing better'n the metal one ever could.

At least, that's what she tells herself for the first little while after Ma dies and all she wants to do is wind that music box up until it'll sing forever. And, after a while, it becomes true enough that Nettie doesn't have to keep the little box high up on the mantle where Casey can't reach it.

So now she only listens to it sometimes, like sometimes after she's taken a bath and she sits down at Nettie's side and lets Nettie brush her hair out real fine. Times when it don't hurt so bad to remember losing Ma, 'cause Nettie's right there, taking care of her.

When Guy Royal picks it up, it feels like she's losing Ma all over again.


	13. Vin, sitting on a rock outside the Vinnebago, cleaning his guns at sunrise (ATF-ish, gen)

Over the years, Vin's had plenty of time to appreciate the freedom of his Winnebago. When you travel with your home on your back, there ain't never a place where you'll feel homesick, his Pa used to say, and back when Vin's more nomadic and erratic lifestyle led to not wanting anything like a permanent address, or a space entirely out of his control, he'd completely agreed with his Pa's words. Now, of course, he has a life, a family, outside of the aluminum walls of his '76 Brave, and the old girl is more of a hobby than a house. And he loves his team, his misfit family. He does. It's just, sometimes he has a hankering for the old days, when he answered only to himself, and didn't have to worry about things like Federal warrants. He misses driving to nowhere in particular, and seeing all the things that folks up in planes normally miss; he misses the little Mom and Pop shops, and the tourist traps, and the constant reminders of how vast and wonderful this country is.

What he doesn't miss, however, is running out of gas in the middle of the fucking Bonneville Salt Flats.

The fact that this is the third time this has happened to him doesn't make him feel any better about the situation, but it does mean he knows where the nearest gas station is, and he just barely manages to coax the old girl into the small lot in the middle of nowhere. It's a five-fifteen, and the station is dark and abandoned looking, but Vin reckons that someone will show up sometime. In the meantime, the sky is lightening, and he reckons his guns need some cleaning.


	14. Buck and Josiah, children (OW, Buck/Kate, gen)

"Woman, you get off that horse this instant!"

Josiah puts down his book at the sound of Buck's voice and looks out door of the church, to where Buck stands in the middle of Main Street, arms outspread, and glaring bloody murder at Katie Stokes. He's a brave man for doing so, Josiah thinks, for all that Kate's his wife in every eye but that of the lord and the law – specially now that Kate's growing belly has forced her to trade in her six shooter for a Winchester rifle.

"Buck Wilmington, I know you ain't telling me what to do."

"Damn straight I am! You can't go riding out in your condition!" Buck's glare softens, as does his voice, and he approaches Kate slowly, like he's trying to run down a skittish horse. "Now come on, darlin', we talked about this."

"And I told you, I'd be hunting down those murdering bastards."

"Damn it Kate! That's my baby in there!" Buck shouts, all out of patience. He throws his hat to the ground and the movement makes Kate's horse start and sidle crab-wise away from him. Kate calms the big black with a quiet "hush now" and a firm hand on the reins, then glares down at Buck.

"And it's my body. Now you gonna move or do I have to run you down?"

"She'll do it, Buck," Vin says as he rides up. "You know she will."

"And you!" Buck rounds on Vin. "Don't you be encouraging this! You ain't got no call to ask a man's pregnant wife to be your wingman on a bounty hunt!"

Vin shrugs and manages to convey in that simple movement that he is both smug and not at all ashamed of himself. "She's a damn fine shot, Buck. 'Sides, all y'all look down right ugly in a dress."

"I know that! Still ain't no reason to—" Buck begins and then jumps out of the way with a yelp as Kate canters past him. Vin rides past a second later, tipping his hat to Buck as he passes by.

"Kate! KATE!" Buck shouts, though he knows it'll do no good. He sighs and picks up his hat – trampled flat, now, and dustier than Josiah's hymnals – and walks up the steps of the church.

"Thought you said children were a blessing, Josiah," he grumbles as he beats his hat against his leg.

"They are." Josiah follows the fast disappearing forms of Kate and Vin until their brown coats become one with the brown earth. "Ain't never said what kind."


	15. Nathan and Buck, children (Safecrackers, missing scene)

Nathan turns to him during one of the innumerable stops they have to make so Olivia can take a piss – girl's got a bladder the size of a dried corn kernel, he swears – and says, "You don't like kids much."

Buck glances at him and then back to where Olivia's disappeared into the bushes. "I like kids just fine. Just so longs as they keeps their distance, anyways."

"Uh huh." Nathan is smirking, just a little, and he looks from the bushes to where Terry stands. "You know you ain't never gonna get a woman like that to look twice at you without you making nice with her kid."

"I know," Buck says, and he does. Oh he does, and a few years ago Olivia wouldn't have been a problem at all. A few years ago, it never would've crossed Nathan's mind that Buck might not like kids.

Of course, a few years ago, Sarah had been alive.

And a few years ago, he wouldn't have looked at every child and felt the aching gap of Adam's smile.


	16. Nathan and Ezra, humid afternoons (OW, gen)

Nathan notices Ezra's stiffness right away, though he doubts anybody else does. Ezra's too good of an actor to let fall any hint of weakness.

But Nathan is intimately familiar with Ezra's body; with all of his friends' bodies; seen them all in sickness and health and everything in between and he knows the difference between what Josiah looks like when he's slouched in his saddle because he's just tired and what he looks like slouched in his saddle because his old bones just don't take to long days of hard riding like they used to and all his joints are screaming like the devil hisself. Besides, he's too good a healer to miss the pain in Ezra's eyes, the way he holds himself perfectly straight and doesn't reach casually across to grab the bottle of whiskey he's clearly longing for.

Nathan thinks he knows the problem, too, and so he slaps Ezra on the back – a little harder than need be, perhaps – and watches as Ezra stills even further, face going carefully blank, breath hitching just a little.

"You come on up to my clinic, hear?" he tells Ezra, quietly, but in the tone he uses on Josiah when he's drunk and ornery and in need of some stitching. Works just as well on Ezra as it does on Josiah, too, because Ezra nods stiffly and excuses himself from the table.

In the clinic, he helps Ezra take off his coat and shirt – slowly, of course, and with more gentleness than he showed earlier – exposing the red and angry skin bit by bit.

"You're a damned fool," he says. "What were you thinkin', spending all that time in the sun without yo' shirt?"

"I did not realize it would be quite this bad," Ezra replies stiffly. "I am well aware of my own limits, Mister Jackson, and have always taken great pains to preserve the integrity of my skin."

"Damned fool," Nathan says again, and he spreads the cool salve across Ezra's sunburned skin. He feels Ezra shudder at his touch, and the movement sparks an anger in him he didn't know he had. And he don't know its cause, 'cept for the fact that it reminds him too much of 'Bama. Makes him think 'bout other times he's used this salve on other backs and other wounds – wounds deeper than those caused by exposing ivory skin to the hot, dry sun.

"This ain't the South," he snaps at Ezra. "Heat's all different here."

"Indeed. I had not noticed this fact," Ezra says, voice as dry as the desert air. "I thank you for your most…astute observation."

Nathan snorts, and the scent of sage and dust and sun-baked wood push back the humid ghosts of long dead afternoons.


	17. Chris and Josiah, reading (OW, gen)

It's not like they planned it out in advance – just one of them things that happens, as natural as the sunrise. Sunday afternoons, he and Josiah sit out on the porch of the church and read, quiet like. No talking, no preaching – just them and the books and some coffee. A little break from the madness that usually plagues this town. Takes him a mite longer to read a book through than Josiah, but there ain't no shame in that. Never did like reading much as a young'un, though he appreciates it now. Something soothing 'bout the way the paper feels, the regularity of the words before him. And it's nice to know that there's a truth to these words, unlike the ones Mary prints in her paper.

He turns the page and takes a sip of his coffee – cold, but not too cold, warmed as it's been by the sun.

"Hey Josiah, Chris." JD stops to lean on banister of the church's steps, wrapping his arms around the big end post and rocking idly from one foot to the other. "You guys reading?"

"Yup," Chris says. He turns another page.

"Anything good?"

"Well, now, that's a good question," Josiah says as he puts his book down. "See, some might consider this book," and he taps the hefty tome in question, "blasphemous for it seems to discredit the almighty power of the divine, for it suggests that we are not formed by God's direct purpose, but rather through the chaos of the world. 'How much of the acclimatization of species to any peculiar climate is due to mere habit, and how much to the natural selection of varieties having different innate constitutions, and how much to both means combined'? And yet, did not God create the land around us that led to this acclimatization? Is it not by his hand that the coyote has adapted to live in both the desert and the plains, while the Great Auk is now no more?"

"Uh huh," JD said. "Chris?"

"Man's got a whale to kill." Chris turns another page. "My money's on the whale."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage Josiah quotes is from Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_. Chris, of course, is reading _Moby Dick_.


	18. Ezra and JD, fathers (OW, OT7-ish, gen)

Ezra cuts the deck one handed – a trick he's done a thousand times – and begins to deal the cards. They flash out across the green baize like a flock of some strange breed of bird scattering to the four corners of the world.

"Well, gentlemen?" he asks. "Stud or Draw?"

"Why we gotta play poker at all?" Vin grumbles. "Too many damn rules – why don't we play Faro instead?"

"Faro, Mister Tanner, is a game for the masses. Poker is the game of kings."

"Thought that was horse racing," Josiah says. He picks up his cards and looks at them contemplatively. "Or is that chess?" He looks up at the table and grins his off-kilter grin. "Or perhaps it's beheading."

"Faro's a cheater's game," Buck says, but mildly. He looks over at Chris and begins to laugh at a sudden memory. "Remember that time up in Grenville? When Joe Hart's box broke and it turned out he was using a deck with five Queens?"

Chris grins, a little. "Yup. As I recollect, that was also the time you lost all our money betting on that crooked table."

"Well now," Buck begins, and the two of them are off, bickering at each other like old women. Ezra sighs and collects the cards back. He shuffles them again, then begins to cut the ace of spades in and out of the deck; he pulls it out with a flourish each time, and makes the card flicker between the fingers of his left hand before cutting it back in. JD watches him intensely, then leans back in his chair and shakes his head.

"Your Pa teach you how to do that?" he asks.

"My father?" Ezra says glibly. "Which one?"

JD's brow furrows in confusion and Ezra sighs.

"No," he says seriously. "I never knew the man from whose seed I sprang. Mother's third husband was a jeweler, I believe, and her fourth was a politician – and a greater con man I have never seen. And then, of course there were assorted 'Uncles' who came and went."

"Uncles?" JD says. "I didn't know you had relatives Ezra. They all back East?"

Ezra stops playing with the cards and stares at JD. Surely the boy couldn't…

"JD, surely your mother had gentlemen suitors? Perhaps one who stayed the night a time or two?"

"Well, there was Mister Roosevelt. But we lived in his house, so I don't think it counts." JD takes another sip of milk. "Anyway, Ma said I was the only gentleman she needed. 'Sides, she said it was only right to respect my Pa's memory – he was a war hero, you know."

Ezra manages to stifle a laugh, though there really is nothing terribly funny about JD's naivety. "Well what a coincidence," he says. "So was mine."


	19. Chris, his 'harem' of six men (ATF, crack)

"This," Ezra said, "is the _stupidest_ idea I have ever heard."

"Stupider than that time Vin and JD decided to –" Nathan began, but Ezra cut him off with a glare.

"Yes," he said. "This is stupider than any thing Vin and JD have ever thought up. Including that time they decided to play GPS hide-and-seek."

"Look," Vin said, words muffled by the cloth of the burka he was wearing, "that was an entirely sound training scenario."

"You played GPS hide-and-seek," Ezra said. "On the top of a mountain. In sub-zero temperatures."

"Oh just put the damn burka on," Vin snapped back. "Ain't like it's the first time you've worn women's clothes."

"It's not the fact that these are women's garments that I object to," Ezra said. "It's the fact that the six of us must wear them while Chris gets to pass himself off as our quote-unquote husband."

"And?" Josiah said.

"And? And?! How many blond-haired and blue-eyed Afghanis have you seen?"


	20. Josiah and Vin, bullets (Steampunk!Seven, gen)

In general, Vin Tanner is a cautious man. He's deliberate. He thinks things through. He don't act on impulse, and he don't jump feet first into a fire or a gunfight – well, most times he don't, anyway. Sure, he's put his foot in a few hornets' nests in his time, but who ain't? And anyway, at least he's always had the commonsense to run like the dickens after doing so.

 _So why,_ he asks himself as he listens to Josiah babble excitedly at him, _ain't I doin' just that?_

It's a rhetorical question, a'course. He knows damn well why he let himself be talked into being Josiah's latest guinea pig, why he's standing out here decked out in so much boiled leather that he can barely move, and sweatin' more than just standing 'round in the hot desert sun warranted. It's lust, pure and simple, that's drivin' him to ruin – or if not ruin, then surely some sort of damned painful accident. Lust, and he ain't ever been one for the Good Book, but he reckons he understands now why that's a sin, and he resolves that if he gets outta this alive, he ain't never gonna be tempted again.

He's damn proud he manages to keep that resolve all the way up to picking up the gun. That big, shiny, sleek lookin' gun Josiah done built. That big, shiny, sleek gun, with polished brass inlays and the dark wood stock sanded so fine it's like holdin' satin. That big, shiny, sleek gun that called out to him like the Devil himself from where it lay, all oiled and ready, on Josiah's work bench deep in the gloomy belly of his workshop below the church. That big, shiny, sleek gun that's just beggin' to be lifted, stroked, cradled up snug against his shoulder…

Vin pulls the trigger, and even though he's braced, even though he knows that anythin' Josiah makes has a tendency to go boom, he still ain't even half-prepared for either the gun's recoil or the hellfire noise it makes goin' off. He's on his ass faster than a greenhorn fallin' off a buckin' bronco, and his ears are ringing like he's sittin' right under the damn town bells. His shoulder feels like he's been kicked by a mule, and for a moment he fears that the fact that he can't feel his damn hand means it's been blown clean off.

But no, there it is, right at the end of his arm where it's s'posed to be and eveythin' appears to be functional even though it's a damn strange feelin' to see his fingers wigglin' and not feel them move.

Josiah's shadow passes over him and he looks up into the crazy preacher's wild, beaming face.

"Great!" Josiah roars, passing him a bullet that's at least as long as his index finger, "now let's try firin' it live!"


	21. JD and Chris, fathers (OW, JD/Casey implied, gen)

Chris heard JD's approach a good ten minutes before the young man actually rode into view. A man would have to be deafer than a post not to hear him – or rather, not to hear the squalling baby he had strapped to his back. She was only six months old, but it was damn clear that little Annie Dunne had quite a bit to say about the world, and most of it right uncomplimentary at that.

"JD," Chris said over the baby's wails, nodding an amiable greeting to the tired looking young man.

"Chris." JD dismounted carefully and slid the cradleboard off his back. He had dark circles under his eyes and a three-day beard, and Chris had to look down to make sure JD didn't see his grin.

"Here to see Nathan?"

JD shook his head mutely and jigged the baby up and down a bit; Annie hiccoughed and then began to cry again, twice as loud as before. JD stared at his wailing daughter in utter dismay, and Chris couldn't stop the laugh the welled up at the sight.

"Ain't funny!" JD snapped, though he still kept his hold gentle as could be. "She's been cryin' for a fortnight! Casey and I ain't been able to sleep a wink, and she's scared all the chickens out of laying!" He jigged the baby up and down again, and added with a touch less acerbity, but a great deal more defensiveness, "Reckoned a change of scenery might do her some good."

"Damn smart idea," Chris said, as placatingly as he could. "Here, let me hold her." When JD hesitated, he added, "Come on, kid. You look like you're 'bout ready to fall down in the street."

"Ain't a kid," JD grumbled, but he handed the crying Annie over willingly enough.

"You'll always be a kid," Chris said as he undid the cradleboard's ties and pulled Annie free from the swaddling. "Ain't that right sweetheart?"

Annie hiccoughed again, and Chris began to rock her gently in his arms, humming the same old song he'd sung to Adam when he'd been fractious and wouldn't sleep. Annie yawned, huge and toothless, and swung her tiny fists in protest at the injustice of being loved and swayed to sleep, and Chris felt himself smile again. He had loved Adam at this age. Well, he had loved Adam at every age, but there had been something special about six months, something precious and wonderful – a whole new world to explore, a whole new way to see life through his son's wide and wondering eyes.

"Think I'll ever be as good a dad as you?" JD asked, soft and low and oddly innocent. Chris looked up, startled, and then looked away, unable to face the naked adoration in JD's eyes.

"Here," he said instead, handing Annie over. "Reckon she'll sleep for a little while now."

JD nodded, and cradled his daughter gently in his arms. He stroked the wisps of dark hair on her head, and for a moment Chris had a painful flashback to the life he'd lived before – the life of wife and child and future and hope. And then it was gone and he was once more staring at JD looking down at his child as though amazed that he could have brought something so small and precious into this world.

"You're a good father," Chris said, at last, and he didn't look at JD's face, but stared resolutely down at Annie. "Calmin' a cryin' baby just takes learning and a full night's sleep. You're doin' just fine."

He touched Annie's soft hair, listened to her snuffling little breaths, and said again, softer this time and with a sideways smile at JD, "You're doin' just fine."


	22. Kate Stokes: Turning her land into something more than a weedpatch (OW, Kate/Buck)

The first thing Katie did when she got to her farm was chase all the critters out of the shack. A whole family of raccoons had set up a nest in there, and they chittered and chided her the entire time she swept out the clutter and dirt and tidied the place up into something that almost looked like a home, if you squinted hard enough. She liked the noises they made, and she chittered right back at them, the way she'd used to chitter for Maddie, when they'd been little, and Pa had been on one of his drunken rages. They'd hide out in the hills and pretend they were little forest critters, and Katie wondered, idly, if the broken down lean-to they'd made was still there. 

She didn't go and look for it, though. 

She hired a couple of young men from town to help her clear out the weeds and plow the fields, paying them with Del's cash, and she didn't talk to them at all. They were young and she was wary and could see the meanness lurking behind their eyes, even in the scrawny, pimply one who was only good for handling the mules. They were polite enough, she guessed, for they all called her ma'am and touched their caps to her, and still Katie paid them off with one hand and kept her other on her gun, and made sure they all saw it was there. 

Del had ruined her, she reckoned, or Buck had, for she couldn't see any smile but his without flinching. But she reckoned time would heal that wound, like it would heal the wound in her heart, the wounds on her body, the wounds Del and Pa had left on her soul. Time would heal it, and if it didn't, well, she was done with men. 

Day by day she rose with the sun and worked the land, bending it to her will. It wasn't much, and it had been Pa's, but it was all she had left in this world, and she wouldn't lose it too. She planted corn and hay, bought a cow and some chickens, and let her big black gelding grow fat and fractious in his pasture. 

Day by day she rose, day by day she toiled, day by day she slowly turned the farm from a shack in a weed patch into a home. Or something like enough a home, at least on the outside. On the inside, though, it was still so hollow, so cold, so silent. 

She'd never known such silence. 

When she saw the lone rider in the distance, she thought it was one of the boys from town, come out to court her despite all her efforts at driving them away. She went to the house to grab her Winchester, and when she got back the rider on the dappled gray had reached the fence surrounding her little flower garden. Buck had his back to her and his horse was munching on the wild flowers she'd planted there and Katie wasn't entirely convinced that she shouldn't just shoot him right now – it'd be the easy thing, after all, and she was, in a way, content with the life she'd carved out of the land.

Buck turned to her and smiled, his eyes twinkling like he'd never seen sadness before, though Katie knew that he had. 

"Well howdy, darlin'," he said as he gave her a wink. 

Katie put down her gun, and smiled, and finally felt alive.


	23. Pen & Paper (Nathan/Rain, gen, modern AU)

The very first thing Nathan can remember is writing. He remembers, with aching clarity, the slant of afternoon sunlight spilling across the empty backside of the rough, brown paper bag, the way the pen felt in his hand – not too heavy, but solid, present, an old fountain pen that had belonged to his granddaddy – and the way the lines wavered and wobbled across the makeshift page. They hadn’t had much, back in those days – barely enough money for food and decent clothing and the outrageous rent their slumlord charged them – but they’d always had paper and pens. It was amazing what toys, what landscapes of childish imagination, could be created from such simple objects – knights and princesses and dragons and heroes and castles and dark, deadly forests, colored garishly from broken half-sets of stolen crayons, or left light brown, like Mama’s skin. 

After Mama died, Nathan found a different use for his pen. Then it became a weapon, a way of pouring out all the hatred and anger and despair and fear and confusion, of making sense of everything inside him, of turning the turmoil into manageable words that still didn’t quite capture everything he wanted to say. Sometimes there were no words at all to describe what he felt, and in those times the pen and paper became a map of his soul, full of dark creatures and dragons and burial mounds. He’d write, and write, and write, scribbling and drawing all of his thoughts, until Bobby Delancy saw him writing on the stoop and snatched away his home-made journal (a thing of string and ragged bits of paper held together more by a young boy’s love than by any real mechanism) and read the poem Nathan had written for Sarah Wallace (who was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, and who was white, and even though it weren’t the 60’s anymore, it still wasn’t considered right for a black boy to write poetry to a white girl) and it took seven days for Nathan’s black eyes to go away; of course it took two months for Bobby’s arm to come out of the cast, so Nathan figured those seven days were worth it. 

Still, after that, he didn’t seek out pen and paper quite so often. He played sports, instead – ran track, played second base, got enough of a sports scholarship to get out of ‘Bama and head to North Carolina, to Duke for undergrad, where pen and paper were instruments that got in the way of his fun. The cheap pens wore a divot in his finger, and the notebooks got wet and messy and splattered with beer and pizza and soda and gunk; they weren’t the objects of reverence that they used to be. They were just tools, to be picked up and discarded and the doodles Nathan drew in the margins of his notes were just abstract patterns to keep himself awake while the Professor droned on about covalent bonds. Besides, computers were the thing, now – computers and word processing and email, and nobody really wrote anything using pen and paper anymore. Why bother scribbling down in a diary when a blog was so much easier? And in the vastness of the internet, it was probably more anonymous and protected than a real life journal ever could be. 

And then he met Rain, and suddenly he was the little boy again, with no money to buy toys but enough imagination to not care. Suddenly he wanted Rain to know everything about him; he wanted to communicate in a way that let her see who he really was, let her know that he always wrote his ‘f’s with a little flourish, and that his ‘a’s and ‘c’s could be indistinguishable if he wrote too fast. He wanted to show her all the secret places he’d learned as a child – how a ‘d’ could become the toe of a dragon, and how an ‘m’ was the lowest foothill of a mountain. He wanted to write the world for her and change it with each stroke, and he couldn’t do that behind a computer. 

So he found his granddaddy’s old pen, and paper that was smooth as linen and the color of old satin, and he wrote, with painstaking clarity, “you’re beautiful” upon the smooth expanse; wrote the words over and over, until they formed a rose made up of letters and longing. 

He slipped the note into her purse as he walked past her lab station in Organic Chem, and waited, heart beating, for her to find it. It seemed to take ages until she had to open her bag, and Nathan ducked his head, suddenly shy in this moment: would she be pleased or creeped out by his little gift? 

A small piece of paper – notebook paper, torn out and folded into a triangle and sent skimming through the air – bounced off his head and he looked up and over to where Rain sat hunched over her experiment. He took the paper and unfolded it, and smoothed it out, until he could read scrawled out in pencil and ugly enough to be a doctor’s hand: “you are too.”


	24. Happiness in a Minor Key (Nathan/Rain, OW, piano)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Nathan/Rain, a subsequent visit to town, after Rain tells him more about her father, Nathan brings Rain to the saloon after hours so she can see/play the piano.

Of all the things Nathan loves about Rain, the way she hums ever-so-slightly off-key while she’s distracted is pretty high up that list. It’s an unconscious thing, Nathan knows, and he supposes that if he didn’t love her he’d find it incredibly annoying, because sometimes she just hums the same three bars over, and over, and over again, and sometimes she’ll start humming one song and switch abruptly to another. She hums as she flits about his clinic, and she hums as she strokes a gentle finger down his scars, and she hums as he escorts her through town. 

“I will not be long,” she tells him as they pause before the Potters’ store, her eye caught by a hat with white feathers. 

“I’ll be here,” Nathan replies, and laughs as she hums a pleased little trill and presses a chaste kiss to the side of his mouth before darting inside. She’s fingering a pale green dress and humming the first three bars to “Lindy Lowe” over and over again, her low contralto voice carrying clearly into the street, when JD walks up. He cocks an ear to Rain’s humming, then turns to Nathan, a grimace on his face.

“Don’t that drive you crazy, Nathan? The humming?”

“Nah,” he tells JD, and it doesn’t because when Rain is humming, it means she’s in town. And when Rain is in town her presence just fills Nathan up to the brim with incredulous, possessive joy.

“Guess she learned it from her Daddy,” JD says and he sighs. “Kinda wish he’d taught her more’n three bars, though.” 

Nathan doesn’t say anything, but he thinks about JD’s words. They don’t talk much about fathers in these parts – mostly ‘cause they don’t really got any. He thinks Chris’s daddy is still alive somewhere back in Indiana or Illinois or someplace like that, and he knows Josiah’s daddy is a real touchy subject, but the rest of them…shoot, he spent the better part of his life hating his daddy, and then watching him die, and he thinks he’s really the luckiest one of them all when it comes to fathers. At least he had a daddy for a little while; at least he got to say goodbye.

That thought pulls him up short, and it occupies all of his mind as he walks Rain and her new hat to her horse, keeps him from really doing more than giving her an absent-minded kiss as he lifts her into the saddle. Rain looks down on him with her old, laughing eyes, and doesn’t question what’s in his mind, and the part of him that’s not reliving the last weeks with his father loves her all the more for her silence. And yet, there’s a part of him that wants to talk to her about this, wants to ask her what it was like growing up free and with a father – was Eban fierce or gentle, did he teach her to bow before the white man or did she learn her fierceness from him? It’s not hard to imagine Eban, puffed up like a cockerel, ready to fight any man who dared lay a hand on his daughter; it’s not hard to imagine, too, that when faced with an arrogant white man, he would bow his head and mumble “yas suh” and “nuh suh” just like Obadiah had all his life. 

What did Rain remember – pride or subservience? And did she feel the odd shame, the learned fear, the burning anger that he felt when she thought about her father? 

Or maybe all she remembers is his music, and now Nathan wonders if her humming is perhaps the only way she has to keep him alive – if, perhaps, these songs are the only legacy she has, much like the white rope bridle is the only thing Nathan has of Obadiah. And he wonders if perhaps the reason she repeats the same three bars is because she can’t remember any more of the song and fears that this means she’s losing the memory of the man that taught it to her. 

Nathan thinks on this for a week and a bit – the length of time it takes for Rain to decide to make the ride back into town again – and in that time he thinks he has a solution of a sorts. The idea of it fills him with nervous pleasure, and he alternates between smiling and snapping, between wanting to sit still and wanting to scream out his secret from rooftops. Rain watches him with her patient, knowing eyes, and laughs at him when he drops his books and sighs at him when he’s a little too impatient with Buck, who’s got it into his mind that he’s losing all of his hair ‘cause of a spell Vin put on him. He can barely eat a bite during dinner, just pushes the food around on his plate, and Rain frowns at him, because they both grew up knowing better than to waste food. 

“I’ll put it by the oven, yes?” Inez says to him as she’s clearing out the last of the patrons, and she winks at him in a way that makes Nathan blush from his roots to his toes. “You can eat it later.”

“So,” Rain says, after Inez whisks their plates away. “What is this surprise you have been dying to tell me all day?”

“Ain’t got no surprise,” Nathan tries to lie, but he can’t lie at all in front of Rain’s patient, loving smile. “Fine. Come with me.” He takes her hand and walks her over to the corner where the piano sits. It’s a fine, fancy piano – Ezra’d brought it in special from Chicago, back when he owned the saloon – all dark rosewood and real ivory and ebony keys. An instrument for a real musician (there’d been rumors of contracts for a real piano player, all the way from New York, right around the time Ezra lost the place to Maude) and ever since it arrived, it’s mostly been covered with a sheet and gathering dust.

“Nathan?” Rain’s eyes are laughing at him again, and he smiles, giddy and lost in his love for her, then pulls the sheet off the piano with a flourish. 

“Ta da!”

For a moment Rain just keeps smiling, although her smile is confused now, and then the smile slips, slowly, like the side of a hill after a heavy rain. 

“Ta da?” Nathan says again, although he’s hesitant and worried now. Her silence is unnerving, her stillness like that of a man who's just received a mortal blow, and he finds himself searching for something to say to fill the quiet stretching between them. “It’s a piano.”

Rain nods and strokes her hand across the satin-smooth wood, caresses the elegant curve of the music stand, the ornate carvings that decorate the front and through which the silver strings dully gleam. 

“You ain’t…you ain’t mad, is you?” Nathan asks. “Only, well, you hum so much, and I figured, your daddy maybe taught you to play, and I asked Inez and she said if you wanted to, you could play here sometimes, so you could be close to him again. If you want.”

Rain is still silent, still grave, and now Nathan’s worried. He shakes his head and twists the sheet in his hands. “Aw hell. It was a dumb idea. I’m sorry.”

“I hated his piano,” Rain says, softly. And then louder, “I hated it.”

“But—“

“He said it was the only thing that was his, that it was his most precious possession. But I was his too! I was his daughter! Wasn’t I more precious than any thing of wood and metal?”

Nathan gapes at Rain, unsure of what to say, of how to react. “I—“

“He died for that damn piano!”

“I—“ he says again, and he wraps her up in his arms, holds her tight as she sobs into his shoulder, strokes her back and whispers soothing nonsense until the flood of tears subsides into no more than a shuddering trickle. “But the songs,” he says at last. “The humming.” 

“I hated that piano,” Rain says. “But I loved him.”


	25. Vin and the train (gen, Steampunk!Seven)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off of the picture prompt below at the [mag7daybook](http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org/) dreamwidth community

Art by Phillip Lloyd Simpson

 

There was a moment right after Ezra'd explained the plan and JD was about to start explaining how the infernal thing worked when Vin actually thought about saying no. It was insane, this thing they were asking him to do, and a part of him was actually somewhat insulted that they'd been so sure he'd go along with this without reservation, without complaint, without even a raised eyebrow at the nature of this act – sure he'd done some things that ain't what one could rightly call legal, but there was a difference between doing a little cattle rustling and, well, this. Cattle rustling could get a man shot, sure, but Ezra's plan involved hijacking a damn train and that was the sort of thing got a man hanged – never mind that the folks on the train had just kidnapped a man and damn near killed three others. 

'Sides, he reckoned that hijacking a train weren't what Josiah imagined when he'd built the Iron Horse. 

_Still,_ Vin thought, looking at JD trying to explain how to work the Iron Horse with his busted arms and bloodied head, wounds courtesy of the men who'd snatched Josiah, _I reckon he ain't gonna mind much one way or t'other._

"Ok," he said, interrupting JD's spiel about the proper way to do somethin' or other, "I s'pose it makes sense that we gotta use this damn thing 'cause those bastards got themselves a train that don't need tracks to run, but I don't get why I gotta be the one ridin' it."

"You're the only one who's willin' to use the gun," JD said, then raised one bandaged hand sheepishly. "Well, only one who c'n use it right now." 

"Hell," Vin said. "Guess I'm gonna go steal a train."

+++

In some ways, Vin hated the horse. It weren't nothin' like the way Chris hated the horse – that was snobbery, pure and simple, and the Iron Horse was sounder than some of the screws Vin'd ridden in his time. The problem with the horse was that it didn't run like a horse – too smooth, too even, with no fighting of the bit and no stomping and starting and orneriness – and Vin had spent most of his life in a saddle, so bein' on a thing that looked and acted like a horse and yet didn't really move like one made him feel all off balance and uncertain, like he was standing on shifting sand. It didn't help matters that the thing responded to every damn twitch and clutch of his legs like a real horse, turning this way and that without the slightest need for the reins. Pressure plates in the sides, or some such thing, JD had said, and Vin ended up galloping the thing two miles East before he got the measure of it down. Still, he was used to it now, and to the speed and the way the fall of each heavy hoof thundered through both the earth and his body; used, too, to the heat that he could feel radiating from beneath the heavy leather saddle – the one that weren't built like any saddle Vin had ever known before, with no cantle to speak of and shaped like a dove's wing, all swooping ovals – and through the stiff leather armor and the stench of the smoke that billowed out from the thing's nostrils. 

In the distance he could see the curl of smoke from the trackless railroad rising stark against the bleached-blue sky. They weren't all too far from where he was now, and Vin knew that even if the train didn't need no tracks to run, it was still a train, still too big for most of the passes across the Sangre de Cristo, which meant they'd be runnin' across the desert for a good long while. Still, they looked to be running North, and fast too, which meant Vin'd need to put on some speed if he intended to catch them before they hit Colorado and were out of the lands he knew almost as well as his own skin. 

A part of him – the part that wasn't occupied with the knowledge that there was a giant ball of fire roaring directly beneath his balls and he never did get a straight answer out of JD if the horse was gonna blow up or not – was, quite frankly, thrilled at the chance to go faster, to go farther, to fiddle with the lever thing-y and feel the ground surge away below him. Hell, if he were being honest with himself, he probably would've gotten on the horse without the complications of Josiah's kidnapping, just to see how fast and far he could go before the thing broke; it weren't just the guns that captivated him.

"Ok, fella," he said to the horse, "let's fly."

+++

Vin caught the train three miles from the territorial border, eyes stinging from the wind and tears streaming down his cheeks and soaking into the bandana he'd wrapped around his mouth. The horse wasn't big enough to force the train aside, though it was a damn sight faster, but the gun was. True, the recoil nearly knocked him off the horse and he almost got impaled by some shrapnel (and he was relatively certain that if he fell now at the speeds they were going Nathan'd be patching up more than some bruises and scrapes) but that wasn't as important as the fact that the train swerved and slowed just enough to give him time to leap from the horse into the cab where three men lay dazed and bleeding. 

"Hands up!" he said in a voice that he knew was too loud. 

"You idiot," the man with the bleeding scalp wound said. "You have any idea who you're robbing?"

"Ain't no robbery," Vin said, grinning widely as the distant sounds of some other folks having a really bad day reached him from further down the train. "This here is a rescue."


	26. Chris, the referendum (gen, Steampunk!Seven)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> randi2204 wanted to know how the town law passed in [Galatea in Bronze (with gears)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/816666) happened.

Chris hesitates at the door to the _Clarion_ , and takes stock of what he's about to do. In some ways he finds Mary as exasperating and infuriating as Josiah – they're both too stubborn and dead set on what they see as right by half, and the fact that the both of them love to work in loud, noisy, and dirty spaces don't hurt the resemblance any – and he ain't entirely sure Mary'll be on board with what he's about to offer. He knows he can pull it off without Mary's help – knows that this is something the whole damn town is behind – but he ain't the best at pretty words, not like Josiah and Ezra, and he needs the pretty words right now, needs a way to say his piece such that it won't be the final straw that breaks Josiah; he knows Josiah's feelin' awful low right now, guilty as all heck because of the way his horse damn near killed JD, and speaking about his damn crows again, and if he says his piece the way he'd normally say it, he knows Josiah'll take that as the sign that he needs to leave town for good. And maybe there are some folks that'd like to see Josiah's back, but Chris ain't one of 'em. All he wants is a warning – heck, five minutes would do – before Josiah blows up the town; and maybe if JD weren't laid up in Nathan's clinic, pale as a ghost and babbling fevered nonsense, he'd be standing in front of JD's door and browbeating the kid into doing his goddamn job. But he can't do that to a sick man, and besides he's got a sneaking suspicion that in JD's mind he _is_ doing his job – only what JD thinks his job should be and what the rest of them think it is ain't rightly aligned no more. 

"Mister Larabee!" Mary says, startling him from his thoughts. She shuffles some papers on her desk, and the suspicious bastard in him wants to know exactly what she thinks she's hiding from him. "What can I do for you today?"

"Mary," Chris says. He hooks his thumbs into his belt and wishes for his cheroot. "You got a minute?"

"For you?" Mary says, the newshound gleam in her eye. "I've got all the time in the world."


	27. Grain exchange (OW, Chris/Ezra)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the dual prompts: "Chris can't keep his hands off of Ezra" and "almost caught behind the grain exchange".

The minute Judge Travis banged down his gavel and said the court was in recess, Chris grabbed Ezra and dragged him outside and into the alley behind the grain exchange.

"Chris, this is hardly the place," Ezra began to say, but Chris wasn't in the mood for coy teasing right now – he needed to touch Ezra, needed to undo the perfectly pressed and razor-sharp edge of Ezra's trousers, rumple and muss the white linen shirt, leave him looking debauched and unkempt and as out of control as he made Chris feel. 

"You know how hard it was to wait 'til the judge called a recess?" Chris said as he undid the bottom buttons of Ezra's vest. "Goddamn it, Ezra, I had to sit on my hands to keep 'em from reaching out to you."

Ezra chuckled, low and darkly amused, but Chris could hear his drawl fraying at the edges like a piece of old cotton on the verge of rending. "Well, I reckon if you did, you would have been held in contempt, and not just by the court."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Chris replied, wiggling his hand down further into Ezra's pants, past the silken underthings that always drove him mad; but then again, everything about Ezra drove him mad these days.

"Yes, but," Ezra said, but Chris had his hand down underneath all the layers, now, and around Ezra's cock, and he squeezed, just a little, just enough to make Ezra stop talking, make his eyes flutter shut and a flush rise up over his fine, fair cheeks.

"God, Ezra," Chris growled, voice too thick with want and need to be anything but harsh, anything but low and animal; a poor release to the frustration that had been building ever since Ezra took the stand. "Why've you gotta be such a damn tease?"

"Tease, Mister Larabee?" Ezra said, voice even more frayed now. "I was merely – ah – presenting evidence—"

"Talkin' circles, more like, and damn near got yourself thrown in jail too—"

"—doing my civic duty—"

"Jesus, Ezra, don't you ever just—"

"—and you, oh Christ." Ezra licked his lips and tilted his head back, exposing that long line of throat at last; Chris knew that it'd taste like sandalwood and musk and the faintest traces of soap, and he wanted to taste that so badly right now. But he wanted more to see Ezra become undone, to lose every last trace of the polished persona he hid behind.

Behind him, the door to the grain exchange banged open and Chris growled and pressed Ezra deeper into the alley, boxed him in. Over the noise of the town filing inside, he heard Judge Travis say, "Court is back in session."

"Chris," Ezra said, but it wasn't the breathy, wrung out way that Chris had hoped Ezra would be calling out his name. "You can't expect me to testify like this."

"You can be a little late," Chris said. "Can't start the trial again without you."

"They'll find us." Ezra grabbed his wrists, pulled gently until Chris released his almost desperate grasp.

"For fuck's sake," Chris said. He sighed as he stepped back, sighed further as he saw that all his hard work at mussing Ezra was already disappearing, the cracks in the polished shield already knitting together until nothing about Ezra could even suggest at fraying, at undoing.

"I shan't be much longer," Ezra said, smoothing down the front of his vest. "And in the meantime—"

"Yeah?"

"In the meantime, I suggest you take up knitting, so as to occupy those empty hands."


	28. Nathan & Josiah, Joy of the game (gen, Modern AU)

"May your mother lie down with flea-ridden goats, you son of a dissipated she-camel!" Josiah shouts as he misses his chip shot again. Nathan cringes and checks the course for any small and impressionable children – an instinctive reaction born out of his years of friendship with Josiah before Josiah learned about Buddhism and his swearing became less understandable but much more creative – before he approaches the lip of the sand trap. Josiah's chipped out a rather impressive hole for himself and, in other circumstances, Nathan might be amused by the vaguely cartoonish nature of the situation (well, how could it be anything but cartoonish given how Josiah typically dresses for a game of golf; seriously, Nathan has no idea where he keeps getting those knickerbockers). But Nathan's been standing in the sun for the past fifteen minutes, waiting for Josiah to give up and just take the penalty stroke, and whatever amusement he might have had is no match for his irritation. 

"Come on, Josiah, just take the penalty," he says as he wipes his forehead.

"One more try," Josiah says, though he doesn't look up. He lines up his shot and wiggles his hips – the way the pro told him to, though Nathan thinks he looks like an ass when he does it – and makes his shot. The ball flies high in the air in a shower of sand and for a moment Nathan thinks that the thirty-second time really is the charm. 

But the ball lands on the lip of the trap and rolls back in with what Nathan can only describe as a mocking insouciance. 

"May you suffer the hell of a thousand fire ants chewing on your genitals," Josiah says and Nathan sighs. 

"Josiah, why the hell are we playing this game anyway?" he asks, more plaintively than he perhaps intended to. 

"Because," Josiah grunts as he lines up for his thirty-third shot. "It's fun."


	29. Buck, Cowboy Casanova (Buck/OFC, modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the prompt on the [Mag7daybook](http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org/401033.html) Dreamwidth community: Buck and/or any female characters talking about Buck, any, based on the song [Cowboy Casanova](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM7NQQ0Lfu4&feature=kp)

It's a Friday night and Buck's feelin' mighty fine. He's got a beer in one hand, a moderate amount of cash in his pocket from a rare win at the poker table, and there's a whole passel of sweet young things sitting in the corner booth next to the jukebox. It looks like they're having some sort of girls night out, but its clear from the way they're eyein' the boys on the dance floor that he stands a mighty fine chance if he goes on over there and introduces himself, real casual like. 

"You gonna eat the rest of your nachos, Buck?" JD asks, and Buck blinks and looks away from the women. 

"Go for it, kid," he says and when he stands he makes sure he stretches up tall – he knows he's a mighty fine lookin' man, and the ladies deserve a good, long look.

"Be careful, stud," Chris tells him, laughing as he swats Buck on the rear. "They're hungry looking."

Buck grins at that and makes a pistol with his hand. He shoots it at Chris and says, "Don't wait around on my account, hoss. I reckon I got my own ride home tonight." 

He keeps his pace slow and rolling as he saunters over to the ladies – not quite a swagger, not quite a strut – and as he gets closer he realizes he knows one of the gals. It's Marjorie from over in accounting, and that makes Buck grin even wider. He's been trying to get her to go out with him for weeks, now, and seeing her with her hair down and her eyes sparkling with laughter just makes the urge to sweep her off her feet even stronger. He's just starting to think of the perfect opening line – can't be about work, but he thinks it may be too early in their acquaintanceship to mention how breath-taking she looks when she smiles – when Marjorie slides out of the booth and walks towards him. For a moment Buck wonders if, perhaps, she's seen someone else, but then she's right beside him, looking up at him, and he knows he really is getting lucky tonight. 

"Howdy, Marjorie," he says in his best drawl, and he mimes tipping a hat to her. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Don't act so surprised, Buck Wilmington," Marjorie says, and he can see her checks are flushed with more than just the heat. "I saw you looking at me."

"Well, I just couldn't help it. You're the prettiest thing in here, and that's including Ezra," he tells her. 

She laughs at that, a low, contralto laugh, and says, "Amy told me you'd say something like that." At Buck's startled jerk she goes on, "Oh yes, I know all about you Buck." She leans in close and whispers, "women talk."

"That right," he says, striving for neutral and not quite managing it. 

"Yes," Marjorie says. She takes his hand and pulls him to the dance floor. "And now, I want to know if everything they say is true."


	30. Tail Wagging (Vin, ATF!AU, gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: any char, any universe, any rating: one of the seven gets a new dog – how did they acquire the dog, and what are his/ her quirks that the 7 learn of?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fill does not exactly fill the prompt as posted. It's intended to be set in the ATF 'verse, but prior to the formation of the team, and it is from Vin's POV while he was an Army Ranger and, as such, he uses the vernacular of his peers. Trigger warnings for: casual racism and swearing.
> 
> Also, the dog I was picturing while writing this fic is an [Pariah Dog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pariah_dog).

Vin doesn’t notice the dog until she’s thrust her cold, wet nose into his hand. He smiles, but doesn’t open his eyes until she does it again, with greater insistence. She’s small and ghostly pale in the gloom and he half thinks she’s a spirit to guide him home. He’s a dead man, after all, even if his body is still alive; knew he was a dead man the minute the building collapsed underneath him, knew it even more when he came to and realized he couldn’t feel anything below the waist, though maybe that’s a blessing given that he seems to have half the building pinning his legs. If he’d been able to reach his knife, then, the dog would never have been able to wake him -- killing himself might not have been the Ranger way, but at that moment he hadn’t felt much like a Ranger, not with the air reeking of his own piss and shit. Besides, he knows what will happen to him if he’s captured and better a fast death at his own hand than the slow and painful one he seems destined for -- though whether it’s at the hands of the Hajis or mother nature, he’s not sure. 

The dog whines and inches closer until her nose is touching his cheek. This close, Vin can see that she’s not much more than a puppy, big footed and floppy eared, although one ear is making a spirited attempt at standing; she reminds him of the dogs of his youth, all sharp muzzles and pointed ears and battle scarred. She’s young and battered, just like him, and in his calm delirium he thinks that this means something more than it probably does.

“Hiya, pup,” he whispers to her.

The dog starts and jerks away, practically jumping sideways in her surprise, and he laughs though it hurts to do so. She barks at him twice, warbling, high-pitched yelps, and he laughs again -- at himself, at his fate, at the pain, because he’s finding the fact of his death so absurd -- and closes his eyes. He listens to her shuffle around and thinks she must be leaving; it’s a surprise to feel her tongue on his face, licking him frantically from brow to chin. 

“Hey,” he says as she licks him again, just as he opens his eyes. “Enough of that.” He lifts one hand and rubs her ears, trying to push her muzzle and her fetid breath away from his face. She whines again, a somehow joyful keen, and wiggles against him in spasmodic joy, before settling down beside him; her head is heavy on his chest, but it’s a comforting weight. For a moment she’s still, and then she nudges her muzzle against the pocket of his tac vest where he usually keeps his beef jerky, and looks up at him with her ancient eyes.

“Sorry, pup,” he tells her as he strokes the back of her head. “Ain’t got nothin’ for you.”

As though she understands him, she sighs and drops her eyes down. Vin sighs with her and goes back to stroking her velvet soft ears. The movement must soothe her as much as it soothes him because he can feel her relaxing against his side, can feel her breathing slowly even out. His breathing evens out, too, and he loses himself on the soft slide of her fur beneath his fingers. 

When he opens his eyes again, she’s gone and Vin’s got two dead mice on his chest. He stares at the little carcasses for a long, confused moment -- he was sure the dog had been real, but maybe not; maybe he’d seen the mice and gotten confused, though how he ended up with dead mice on him might not bear thinking about. 

He’s just picked the first mouse off his chest when the dog returns, carrying a third mouse in her mouth. Her tail is wagging so hard her entire butt shakes and she practically prances as she picks her way through the debris to him. She drops the third mouse on his chests and pants at him, her lips pulled back until it looks like she’s smiling. 

“Couldn’t’ve fetched me some water, huh?” he asks her, and she barks, sharp and insistent, and nudges the hand holding the mouse. 

“No thanks, I’m not hungry,” he tells her and he tosses the mouse away. She snatches it out of the air and eats it with all apparent relish. He laughs at her, a coughing, painful laugh that leaves him breathless and gasping, and she barks at him again, pawing at his arms until he picks up the second mouse for her. He manages to toss it farther this time, and high enough that she has to rear up to snag it as it passes. He’s got the third one in his hand by the time she prances back to him, and he tries to toss it as high and far as the second, but can barely manage to get it off his chest. The dog cocks her head at him, then picks up the mouse and drops it back in his hand.

“Can’t do it, pup,” he tells her, shaking his head. “Ain’t got the energy.”

She whines at him and paws at his arms again, but when he doesn’t move she seems to accept that his part in her little game is over and picks up the mouse from where it still lies in his hand. She tosses it in the air, catches it, tosses it again, lets it fall and then pounces and worries the little form; it’s a good game and he smiles at her boundless, gangling, puppy energy. She tires of it eventually, however, and leaves the mouse where it lands as she ambles back to him. She curls up beside him again, and he’s grateful for that, because he’s feeling cold now. He strokes her ears again and she sighs a happy puppy sigh. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs to her and closes his eyes. 

She’s still there when he opens his eyes some undetermined time later, but her head is up and both ears are pricked. She’s on the alert for something, and he strains to hear what she hears, but all he hears is the rattle of his breath and the slow thud of his heart. He suspects, though, that it’s the Hajis, come at last to inspect the building, and though he wants her to stay with him, he knows it’s best if she go; he can’t stand to see her shot. 

He scratches her ears one last time, then gives her a push and says, “Thanks for the company, pup, but it’s time for you to go.” She flicks an ear back towards him and whines. He pushes at her harder, says, “Go on, git,” but she doesn’t leave. It’s not until he’s thumped her twice in the ribs that she finally stands and moves away from him. She looks at him with such trusting confusion that he almost relents, almost calls her back. He stays firm, though, and tells her, “Git!” again. She edges closer, whines again, wags her tail at him; he reaches out and closes his hand on a piece of concrete.

It’s not much of a throw, but it’s enough. The dog scrambles back, her tail down and tucked. She stops at the far edge of his vision and barks at him -- loud and unhappy and full of betrayal. 

“Git, I said!” he shouts at her, and reaches for another stone. She growls -- a low, ugly sound -- and backs away, out of his sight. He sighs and clutches the stone tight -- not much of a weapon, but he’ll take what he can get -- and starts to the recite the Ranger’s creed. 

He’s gone through it three times when he hears her start to bark, and the nearly rabid desperation of her voice makes him drop his place. He grits his teeth and starts over; he manages to get all the way to _“Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight”_ when he hears her yelp in pain, and that’s more than his fortitude can take. 

“Hey! Hey! You leave her alone!” he shouts as loud as he can, though with each word it feels like he’s ripping his lungs from his chest. “You leave my dog alone, you motherfucking assholes!”

He bangs on the ground next to him, roars out wordlessly, tries to make as much noise as he can. The sooner the Hajis find him, the sooner they’ll leave his dog alone, and he reckons that’s about the most he can hope for right now. He shouts until he’s left panting, each breath tasting of blood, and he thinks it’s worked for he can hear scrabbling noises from somewhere out of his line of sight. But it’s just the dog, scrambling backwards from the outside, snarling and growling and snapping at a man hidden behind a light. She backs all the way to him, backs up until she’s nearly standing on him, and he’s almost afraid to touch her; there’s nothing puppy-ish about her now. But she’s his, and he needs some of her snarling defiance, so he reaches up and rests a hand on her back; her fur bristles under his palm and he can feel the deep rumble of her growl echoing down his arm and into his own chest. 

“Thank you,” he whispers to her, and he tries to sit up; he’s a motherfucking Ranger and he’ll be damned if he dies on his back. 

“Tanner?” the man behind the light asks, and Vin starts, because he knows that voice. “Jesus Christ. Is that you, Tanner?”

“Howdy Tim,” he says, and he lets himself fall back; his brothers are here, and the relief he feels at that realization is making him tremble. “Took you fellas long enough.”

“Jesus Christ,” he hears Gutterson mutter again, and there’s a hitch to his voice. “Goddamn. Tanner, you dumb, lucky motherfucker.”

“Stop crying, you pussy,” Vin says, though he knows there are tears in his own eyes.

“Fuck you,” Gutterson says, but his voice is gentle. “Those are tears of joy at the thought of all the ass I’m going to buy with the fifty bucks Hayes owes me. We saw the explosion and the dumb motherfucker swore there was no way anybody could survive that. I told him you’re too much of an ornery asshole to let something as insignificant as being on top of a collapsing building stop you.” 

Vin laughs and coughs. He turns his head and tries to spit out the blood filling his mouth. Beside him, the dog’s growl grows louder and he hears Gutterson curse as she snaps at him.

“I’m trying to help him, you stupid mutt,” Gutterson says.

“Don’t call her that,” Vin says, and he tightens his grip on her ruff. “She just knows you’re a shifty motherfucker.”

“That’s just like you, Tanner,” Gutterson says. “While the rest of us are working our asses off, you’re down here in the shade communing with nature.” He stretches his hand out again, cautious, and though the dog’s still growling she doesn’t try to bite him this time as he reaches out and grips Vin’s shoulder. He shines his light in Vin’s eyes and Vin flinches away; it feels like someone’s set fire to his eyes, the pain is that intense.

“Would’ve been up sooner but I can’t feel my legs,” Vin says through gritted teeth. He coughs again and adds, “Think I’ve busted up somethin’ in my chest too.”

“Always making excuses,” Gutterson says, but he tightens his grip on Vin’s shoulder.

When he lets go and moves back, the panic that flares in Vin’s chest is almost as painful as the light in his eyes had been. He knows Gutterson isn’t leaving him, that he’s just calling in his report, but that knowledge doesn’t stop him from letting go of the dog and reaching out; the dog darts forward before he can stop her, snarling and snapping and frantic. 

“Whoa!” Gutterson says, the light rocketing upwards as he throws up his hands. “Jesus! Christ, Tanner, call her off so I can get you the fuck out of here.”

“Easy, girl,” Vin calls out. His hand catches her tail and he tugs, gently, until she turns her head to him. He whistles at her and she slinks back to his side, though she still casts suspicious looks at Gutterson.

“Good girl,” he tells her. The dog huffs at him and he strokes her back, makes nonsense noises at her until she’s no longer bristling and her mouth has gone soft and loose. He keeps stroking her as Doc crawls down to his side and does something to his chest that makes him feel like he’s been kicked by a mule but makes it easier to breathe; keeps stroking her as his brothers first dig him out, then cut him out, Gutterson shielding both him and the dog from the sparks; keeps stroking her as his legs are slowly revealed, limp, busted, and as useful as a ragdoll’s. He keeps stroking her until Dobson and Doc forcibly stop him, strapping his arm down tight to the litter before hustling him to the waiting bird. Behind him the dog starts to howl.

“Goddamn bitch just bit me!” he hears Hayes curse.

“Hey!” he shouts out as loud as he can, though he knows it’s barely more than a whisper. “You fuckers better take care of her or I’ll kick all y’alls asses!”

“Stop moving you dumb hick,” Doc growls at him. “I’m not about to let you waste all of my hard work by rupturing something and bleeding to death.”

“Gotta take care of my dog,” Vin says stubbornly. 

“Ow! Fuck!” Hayes says again, and then Gutterson says, “For Christ's Sake, Hayes, just hold her still.”

Vin tries once again to push himself up and see what’s happening, but Doc’s got a hand on his chest now and he’s a big, solid man with a big, solid hand -- though, hell, Haye’s six-month-old daughter could’ve pinned Vin in place right now. Vin huffs out a curse and tries not to think about what Gutterson is doing to his dog. He trusts these men -- of course he does, they’re his brothers, his fellow Rangers -- but he knows they don’t understand why he cares so much about some dog; even he’s not so sure why the dog is so important to him other than the fact that she had been there in the dark with him.

“Here,” Gutterson says, boosting the dog into the bird and strapping her down beside him where she keens and looks about, whale-eyed, and frantically licks at his face; he’s tied a crude lead around her neck and he pushes the end into Vin’s hand. “Here’s your goddamn dog.”

“Hiya, pup,” he whispers to her, and smiles as she thumps her tail against his side.


	31. Vin, tattoo (OW, gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Vin, OW, the reason he never took his shirt off was because of the tribal tattoo on his back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for mention of past physical abuse.

Vin heard the horses just as he reached the edge of the swimming hole. His first instinct was to freeze and hope nobody would notice him -- it was an ancient instinct and one he ruthlessly quashed. His second instinct was to just go ahead and take his swim; he had every right to be here, after all, and besides there was no guarantee the riders were heading here. But he knew the same unrelenting heat that had led him to seek out the swimming hole had suggested the exact same solution to the approaching riders, and there was no way for him to take his swim without exposing his back to curious stares; and there was no way he’d let that happen. The fact that he could hear the riders clearly enough now to determine that one of them was Buck -- which surely meant the other was JD -- only added to his sense of urgency to dress and abandon his swim. 

With one last, lingering look at the water, Vin grabbed his clothes from the ground and dressed as quickly as he could. It was hard, though, for even though he was wearing the lightest clothes he owned they were still too hot, too rough, and they chafed. The shirt was the worst, for he’d been sweating something awful and the fabric was stiff with salt. 

He’d done up the last button on his trousers when Buck and JD burst around the last bend and cantered into the clearing by the swimming hole. The pair reined in their horses hard in surprise and Vin had to suppress a smile -- surely they didn’t think they were the only ones who knew of the swimming hole. 

“Howdy boys,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. 

“Going swimming, Vin?” JD asked, and from the way he smiled it was clear he’d enjoy the additional company. 

“Just stopping for water,” Vin said, daring either of the men to ask why he’d taken off Peso’s bridle and loosened the saddle’s girth if all he wanted was water. But it was clear the two were too distracted with the thought of diving into the cool water and escaping from the sun to notice such things, so Vin did up his gear and mounted up without further comment. 

“Gonna be here awhile,” Buck called out to him as he nudged Peso into a gentle walk. “In case you change your mind.”

Vin grunted and waved a hand in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn back.

He thought a lot about his abandoned swim, though, as he saw to his gear in the livery’s sweltering barn; thought about it as he slunk his way down main street to the comparative coolness of the jail. He thought, too, about other ways to cool off -- about galloping through endless prairie grass with nothing between him and his horse but a thin pair of buckskin pants, the rest of him bare and free to be caressed by the cooling wind. Of course those days were over and the only thing a gallop could do for him now would be to remind him of all the things he had lost. Best he could do now was lie on the cool stone of the jail and wait for the night. 

He dozed through the rest of the afternoon and when he woke as the last fingers of the sun dipped below the horizon it was to air that was cold but no less stifling. He shivered as his damp shirt created a new level of discomfort and thought about grabbing his coat. He headed to the saloon, instead, and walked in just in time to take a blow to his chest from a chair wielded by a thoroughly drunk Fred Williams. 

Vin stumbled back outside, suddenly breathless, and tried to process what he’d seen. It looked like a general brawl had broken out, which meant he couldn’t really be mad at old Fred. On the other hand, a general brawl meant he could hit just about anybody, and right now that was good enough for him. 

He went back in swinging, and though he knew it’d been an unfortunate happenstance that led to Fred smacking him with the chair rather than his intended target, Vin still took a certain vicious pleasure in decking Fred. After that it was mostly a matter of punching things until they stopped moving and making his way to Chris and the center of the fight. He was nearly there when someone grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled. 

The shirt, already old, tore at the seams, and once more Vin caught himself in the act of freezing. 

Panic -- with desperate hope hard on its heels -- flooded through him pushing him to act and he was stepping back and into the man holding onto him before he’d made the conscious decision to move. The arc of his fist was fully thought out, however, and he was reaching out to grab the man’s coat even as his fist connected with the man’s jaw. The man fell like a sack of dropped flour and Vin grunted as his arms took the strain. 

It was the work of a moment to strip the man of his coat and shrug it on. It was too big, but that didn’t matter; all that mattered was covering his back, hiding the marks before anybody saw, and he could feel his heart slowing, calming, as the heavy canvas settled on his shoulders. He took a breath and looked around -- it was almost a surprise to see that the brawl was over, though it was less of a surprise to see that it was the other six who were the only survivors. 

“Ain’t that Hiram Banks’s coat?” Chris asked as he approached and Vin shrugged. 

“Tore my shirt,” he said. He glanced down at his ruined shirt then back up. “I’ll give it back.”

“Hmm,” Chris said, but didn’t push. 

“Looked like Fred walloped you good,” Nathan said. “Lemme take a look at them ribs.”

“They’re fine,” Vin said, stepping back, panic flaring again. He looked around again and shook his head, trying to find his balance. “Looks like the fun’s over for the night. Reckon I’ll turn in.”

“Vin--”

“They’re fine,” Vin said again, and he made his escape into the night. True his ribs still ached, but right now all Vin could think of was snagging his bedroll and holing up somewhere quiet and private until he felt like himself again. 

When he woke just as dawn turned the sky gunmetal gray, sore and stiff and deeply aware of the bruise purpling his chest, he began to regret his decision. He regretted it even more after two hours of helping Nathan and Josiah pound fence posts into the hard packed ground of the Widow Jacobs’ south pasture. Of course it wasn’t just his ribs that he regretted, but everything about this job. Two hours of hard labor had him drenched and uncomfortable, his shirt clinging to his back and binding on his arms.

Vin straightened up and wiped his forehead. He pulled his shirt away from his chest and thought about how much better he’d feel with it off. Sure he might have to put up with Nathan fussing about the bruise on his chest, but Nathan wouldn’t say anything about his back; hell, Nathan had taken off his shirt after just a half-hour, clearly unconcerned that doing so exposed the mass of scar tissue he carried. Nathan would understand and--

“Water, Vin?” Josiah asked, holding up the pail and dipper, and Vin had to fight like a wildcat to stop himself from flinching away; wasn’t Josiah’s fault that right now he called up shadows in Vin’s mind. 

“Thanks, Josiah,” he said as he took a dipperful, ignoring the look Josiah was giving him. 

“Lookin’ mighty uncomfortable there, Vin,” Josiah said as he took the dipper back. “Sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said and shouldered his hammer, unable to stop himself from wincing as his shirt rubbed against the bruise on his chest. 

Maybe if it’d just been Nathan he could’ve taken his shirt off, could’ve relaxed, but not with Josiah there, with the rosary on his wrist. 

It took the better part of the day to finish fencing in Widow Jacobs’ pasture and when they finished all Vin felt was a bone-deep ache that went beyond the bruise on his chest. The ache was enough to make him long for heat, make him more than willing to pay Howard Johnson’s exorbitant fees to get the bathhouse to himself after closing. 

The relief he felt settling into the near-scalding water was almost orgasmic. 

He was near boneless with relaxation when he heard the door open -- that was the only explanation he could come up with for why he assumed it was just Howard come back to retrieve something from his office. He didn’t even consider that someone else could have made a similar arrangement with Howard Johnson until Ezra was in the room with him, carefully folding his coat and vest and putting them in one of the little cubbies against the wall. 

_Too late_ , he thought, feeling the familiar flutter of panic settling into his chest. 

But perhaps not. After all, as long as he stayed in his tub there’d be no way for Ezra to see his back.

“Ahh, Mister Tanner,” Ezra said, sounding both pleased and amused. “There is nothing quite like a hot bath after a day’s hard work, is there?”

Vin snorted and slid further into the tub. “Thought you didn’t do hard work.”

“That is true, but I do still enjoy a hot bath.”

Vin nodded and watched with growing despair as Ezra lined up bottle after tiny bottle next to his tub. It was beginning to look like Ezra was here for the long haul and Vin wasn’t sure he’d be able to wait out his companion’s bath. He was already starting to lose some of the good the bath had done him; more than that, he wanted to get away and hide his secrets away under the solid protection of cloth and leather. 

So he waited until Ezra stepped into the other room to fetch another pail of hot water before springing out of his tub and reaching for his shirt. 

At any other time, he might have made it -- he might have grabbed the shirt and pulled it on before Ezra came back. But he was stiffer than he thought and he slipped on the water he’d spilled onto the floor, losing precious seconds as he caught his balance. And so it was that he was just touching his shirt when Ezra came back in, saying, “Well, Vin, I hope--”

Once again the ancient instinct to freeze, to hope that stillness would prevent seeing, rose up and this time there was nothing Vin could do to stop it. Bile rose in his throat and he couldn’t breathe. He’d been caught with his shirt off, with the tattoos he used to take such pride in on clear display, and he knew what would happen now: the disgust, the sermons, the lash applied again and again until he bled and Father Rusk shouted for the soldiers to hold him down while he beat the savage out of him. The only saving grace was that his last tattoo -- the one he’d seen on his Vision Quest, the one he’d demanded Old Bear tattoo right on his spine so that it rose up like the mountains from the land, the one that had barely healed when the Rangers who’d captured him abandoned him to Father Rusk’s care, the one that had seemed to so personally offend Father Rusk that the lash wasn’t enough -- was so covered with scars that there’d be no need for Ezra to reach for the iron scouring brush Howard Johnson used to clean his tubs; no need to scrub the offending flesh, as Father Rusk had so often done. 

Father Rusk had been so clear that the tattoos were the symbol of all that was wrong with him; that they were the mark of the devil, and should never be seen; that all good, godfearing men would have the same reaction upon seeing them; and while Vin didn’t put much stock in the things Father Rusk had told him, he believed this one thing with all of his soul. The Rangers at Fort Worth had never hesitated to take the lash to his marks, after all.

“Vin!” he heard Ezra shout, and he hunched his shoulders against the blow he knew would come. 

The heavy weight of Ezra’s coat on his shoulders surprised him and he looked up; Ezra was right in front of him and for a moment Vin was confused by the naked concern on his face. But then Ezra stepped back and assumed his usual expression of polite -- if distant -- interest, though his entire body spoke one eloquent message of discomfort. 

“You seemed...distressed,” Ezra said carefully. “If you still...if you would feel, perhaps, more comfortable, I can fetch Nathan. Or Chris?”

“I’m fine,” Vin said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat. He clutched Ezra’s jacket closer around his shoulders then forced himself to let go at Ezra’s involuntary wince. “I’m just.” He glanced down at his shirt and then at Ezra. “I. Could you?”

“Of course,” Ezra said, and Vin felt himself breathe a little easier as Ezra moved out of his line of sight and started to walk back to the other room. His breath hitched again as Ezra stopped at the doorway and for a moment he feared that Ezra had changed his mind -- that instead of giving him the privacy he so desperately needed Ezra would, instead, pick up the long poker used to stoke the bathhouse’s fire and come back and lay into him the way Father Rusk swore every man would. 

Instead he heard Ezra sigh softly and say, with painful kindness, “Your tattoos are quite...beautiful. Quite...evocative. It seems a shame to keep them covered.”

“Ezra,” Vin began, unsure of what to say, unsure if he was grateful or ashamed; unsure if he needed to ask Ezra to forget what he’d seen; unsure if he wanted Ezra to forget. He could stand a lot of things, but he didn’t think he could stand pity.

“I expect you to return that coat to me in pristine condition, Mister Tanner,” he heard Ezra say as he closed the door separating the two rooms, speaking as though he hadn’t seen the ruin of Vin’s back, the ruin of his courage. “Pristine!” 

Vin carefully folded Ezra’s coat and shrugged on his own shirt. He gazed down at the fine cloth -- silk and satin, now marred with dark spots of water -- and felt like, for the first time in a long while, he could finally breathe.


	32. Nathan, knit!fic (gen, ATF!AU-ish)

For the most part, Nathan doesn't advertise the fact that he knits. It's just something he does in the quiet moments after work, while he and Rain cuddle on the couch and watch movies together. He cranks out socks and scarves and hats for himself or to donate to the homeless shelter, makes lace shawls for the old ladies at the assisted care home he volunteers at, surprises Rain with the occasional cashmere sweater – it keeps his hands busy and makes him feel like he's actually accomplishing something on those days where the bad guys get away. Still, he doesn't really think of himself as a knitter. It's not like he goes to knitting circles, or has strong opinions about circulars versus double points, or thinks deep and unpleasant thoughts about acrylic yarns. It's just a hobby, not a lifestyle, and he can stop any time he wants (or so he believes).

Still, he can't help but get a twitch above his eye every time he sees Josiah break out the crochet hooks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The superiority of circular needles or double points is Very Serious Business in knitting. As is the superiority of knitting over crochet. 
> 
> (The views expressed in this fic are of the knitting author who secretly despises most acrylic yarn and will do just about anything in order to avoid crocheting, and are not those of the knitting community at large.)
> 
> (Still, knitting is clearly the superior craft.)


	33. Nathan/Rain, more Knit!fic (gen, ATF!AU-ish)

Rain didn't find out about the knitting until after she'd been dating Nathan for six months. At first she was confused – not just about the knitting, because she'd never pegged Nathan as a knitter, but why he'd hidden it from her for so long. As hobbies went, it was better than gambling or bagpiping, and it had the added benefit of resulting in the occasional cashmere cowl. All in all, Nathan knitting seemed like a good thing to her. It wasn't until they moved in together than she realized the full depth of his addiction. 

At first, the yarn was confined to a pair of large plastic totes in the back of the spare room's closet. Sure, there seemed like a lot to her, but she wasn't a knitter and she trusted Nathan. Besides, it seemed like there was a certain level of yarn equilibrium, and Nathan never said a word about her collection of quack medical devices (although, to be fair, the old apothecary jars did a fantastic job at holding loose change). And the yarn was very nice to look at and occasionally feel – though she drew the line at petting the yarn like Nathan sometimes did – and she loved the way Nathan's face lit up as he talked about his yarn and his projects and how much old Mrs. Fisk loved the felted slippers he made for her (whenever the felted slippers came up, Rain wisely refrained from mentioning the fact that the first pair nearly broke the washing machine; she was saving that card for the day she finally got her hands on an articulated skeleton), and the fact that Nathan would never admit that he hated acrylic yarns.

And, sure, his knitting tendencies – and his yarn buying – picked up speed after he started working for Chris Larabee, but Rain had always known that Nathan knit as a form of stress relief – and after meeting the rest of Team Seven at the annual agency family day, she understood why Nathan might be feeling particularly stressed. Besides, she found the way he twitched every time Josiah mentioned crochet particularly amusing – as, she suspected, did Josiah. Still, she hadn't realized just how much stress this new job was causing Nathan until the day she opened up the hall closet to grab the flannel sheets and was nearly concussed by an avalanche of yarn.


	34. Nathan, of course healing is a vocation, but not all medicines grow on trees (gen, OW)

" _Steal away, steal away home,_ " Nathan sings as he wipes the sweat from Chris's brow, his voice low and quiet as befits a man in a sickroom, " _I ain't got long to stay here._ "

"You trying to tell me something, Nathan?" Chris asks, his voice just as low and quiet, but for entirely different reasons; his fever may have broken but there's still a hole in his side from Averal's gun and his breath comes fast and shallow. "Got a song for a dying man?"

"You ain't dying, Chris, though I can't say the same if you mess with those stitches again," Nathan says. He sits back in his chair and twists his back, trying to relieve the ache of a long night spent in a hard chair. He sighs, then stands and walks toward the small stove and the kettle he's kept warm through the night. "Think you can drink something now?"

"If it's whiskey."

Nathan snorts and pours a cup of tansy and chamomile tea. His hand hovers over the bottle of laudanum before he moves on and adds a generous splash of whiskey to the cup -- well, it might help Chris sleep, and they could both use the rest. 

"Here," he says, handing Chris the cup as he settles back down. He stretches out his legs before him and leans back, folding his hands before him. "And that ain't a song for the dying," he adds, in the tones of one who has sung to many a dying man. 

"Hmm," Chris says. He drinks the tea, grimacing at the taste, then shrugs as much as he's able to. "Well, better than that shit you were singing earlier -- what was it? Something about sinners?"

"Most of them are about sinners," Nathan says, as that's the simplest answer. He ain't in the mood to talk about coded meanings and the long road to Cannan, and Chris ain't in the mood to listen to the words he needs to start healing the wounds Ella's left in his soul. Still, Chris might be in the mood to listen to a song and Nathan has long known that music is a most powerful medicine indeed. 

"Sarah used to sing to Adam when he couldn't sleep," Chris says around a yawn. "He liked _Long, Long Ago_ best." He hums a few bars, off-key and sleepy. "Think sometimes he'd wake himself up just to have her sing."

Nathan nods and clears his throat and begins to sing.


	35. Josiah, the devil on my shoulder has got my ear right now (gen, OW)

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," Josiah says. "It has been three hours since my last confession." 

"A new record, Josiah." Father Vasquez sighs and Josiah can hear the old priest's cassock rustle through the latticed screen of the confessional. "And what have you done in the past three hours that necessitates confession?"

"I have had impure thoughts about a woman. A burlesque singer," he says, and he closes his eyes, in part to hide his shame but mostly to see Caroline more clearly in his mind.

"The same one you had impure thoughts about last week?"

"Uh. No. No, a different one. But Father, she's so beautiful, and she agreed to walk with me along the Embarcadero and, uh." He hesitates, suddenly shy. "Uh, there was more than thinking, Father."

"I see."

"Twice." 

Father Vasquez sighs and Josiah winces. He opens his eyes and stares down at his hands in the dim light of the confessional, and at the rosary he clutches like a lifeline. He really hopes he hasn't gotten any blood on it. 

"And is that all you wish to confess to, Josiah?" Father Vasquez asks, once the silence has stretched out long enough to be awkward. 

"Uh."

"Oh Josiah." Father Vasquez slides back the screen separating them and Josiah squirms under the weight of his disappointed glare. "I thought we talked about obeying the better angels and resisting the temptations of the flesh."

"Yes Father," Josiah says, his gaze still firmly fixed upon his bleeding knuckles. "Only, sometimes it's hard to hear the better angels."

"This is your third year as a novitiate, Josiah. Surely your angels have learned to shout by now." 

"They have, Father," Josiah says, and he raises his eyes to meet Father Vasquez's. "The devil is always louder."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a (very lapsed) Jew, my entire knowledge of Catholic confession comes from TV and five minutes of Internet research. I apologize for any inaccuracies.


	36. Maude, her best advice to any new mother (gen, OW)

Maude's just come from yet another trying meeting with her son when she sees the Dunne girl waddling down Main Street, looking fit to burst from the child growing in her belly but still glowing with the pleased expectation of youthful motherhood. A part of her wants to just move on by, pretend she doesn't see the timid smile of friendship blooming on the girl's face; she ain't in no kind of a mood to deal with this child who still thinks motherhood is a blessing and a joy, not when the bitter taste of her own wretched boy's disdain lies rankling in her heart. 

But she can still feel Ezra's scornful gaze, and she will not give him the satisfaction that he was right about her, right that she has no understanding of compassion and that she suckled him on the milk of human avarice, so she plasters on her best smile and strolls out to the girl to spite the enemy at her back. 

"My dear Mrs. Dunne," she says, taking the girl's hands in hers. "How lovely to see you."

"Mrs. Standish," the girl says, smiling shyly. "JD told me you was in town. I'm awful glad I ran into you."

"I'm so happy to oblige," Maude says airily. She tucks the girl's hand into the crook of her arm and matches her pace to the girl's slow steps. "Ezra's last letter told me you were in the family way and I'm so pleased for you and young Mr. Dunne. How long until the blessed occasion?"

"We reckon two weeks from last Thursday," she says, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. "Though I'm hoping it'll be sooner. I'm 'bout fed up to here with being pregnant."

"And have you thought of a name for the child?"

"Anne, if it's a girl, and Chris, if it's a boy." She casts her eyes down at that, shyly pleased with her choice in names, and Maude finds it hard not to roll her eyes at choices. She wonders, briefly, how Mr. Larabee would react to being a namesake, and she feels a genuine smile break loose at the image that arises in her mind. 

"Fine names," Maude says, and they walk along in silence for a few more paces.

"Mrs. Standish," the girl says at last, having clearly screwed up her courage to ask the question that pressed her to seek Maude out in the first place, "I was wondering if...well, JD told me 'bout the last time you was here, and the reading you did for him. And I was hoping -- that is, JD and I were both hoping -- that you might do it again? For the babe?" Her hand clutches painfully tight to Maude's arm, and in that moment Maude can feel all of the girl's hopes and fears for the life she carries inside her. 

Maude pauses, and she thinks of all the things she could say to the girl right now; thinks of telling her about the endless nights of colic and fretfulness, of fevers and broken bones, of anger and frustration and worry, of fear and despair, of the endless neediness and the hateful barbs, and the distant wall that she can never seem to breach.

Of the fiercely possessive love that overwhelms her, even now, and keeps her circling back to her only child again and again, unable to stop herself from protecting him, even from himself.

"Oh my dear," she says at last. "I don't need cards to tell you the future of your child. That babe is going to be like all children -- you will love it beyond all measure, and it will always break your heart."


	37. Snowmageddon  (Chris/Ezra, OW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written during Polar Vortex 2015 as a "die, snow, die!" pick-me-up gift for the always amazing randi2204 and just recently unearthed.

When Chris wakes, it's to the tolling of seven bells and the smell of snow in the air. He blinks, sleepy and warm, and stares at the window for a long time until his brain registers the delicate lace tracing the glass panes as frost. For a moment, he's tempted to stay in bed – ain't like there'll be much trouble today. The town usually slows down to a crawl when there's snow on the ground, and though Chris secretly scoffs at the idea of a few measly inches of white dusting the earth as "snow" he does appreciate the softening effect it has on life.

Beside him, Ezra stirs and makes a distinctly disgruntled noise, and Chris amends that last sentiment – snow definitely doesn't have a softening effect on Ezra. 

"Hey," Chris says, his voice still rough with sleep. "Reckon we should get up."

"Nnngh," Ezra grumbles and turns over, pulling more of the blankets with him as he goes.

"C'mon. It's snowing."

Ezra rolls back over and cracks one bleary, blood-shot eye at him, and Chris marvels at the way he can convey so much skepticism with so little face showing. 

"What," Ezra drawls, "makes you think that the fact that there's snow will induce me to leave this bed? I did not come to this godforsaken territory for the snow. I came because I was assured there was a distinct lack of the wretched stuff."

Chris snorts and throws back the covers, then immediately regrets doing so. The room is freezing, and while he's sorely tempted to dive back into the warmth of the bed, he reckons he ought to set some sort of example for Ezra, before he gets himself completely railroaded. So he grits his teeth and strides across the bitterly cold floor to the window, which he flings open with perhaps more flair than is really called for.

"Ain't so bad," he says over his shoulder to the lump in the bed. "Reckon the saloon—"

A face full of snow stops him mid-sentence and he has just enough time to see Vin and Buck standing in the middle of the street and wearing identical shit-eating grins before a second snowball hits him on the chest.

"Nice shot, pard," he hears Buck say as he wisely ducks below the windowsill before Vin can get another shot in.

"Was aimin' for Ezra," Vin replies.

Chris closes the window before Vin can make good on his boast and stalks back to bed, shedding snow all the way.

"And how is the snow?" Ezra asks, smug and slightly flushed with sleepy warmth.

"Cold," Chris says as he crawls back between the sheets and shoves his ice cold feet against Ezra's shins, partially out of spite.

The offended yelp Ezra makes right before Chris buries his snow-wet face against Ezra's neck is nearly as good as the kiss he steals when Ezra opens his mouth to protest.


	38. Nathan, deep and unpleasant thoughts about acrylic (knit!fic, gen, ATF!AU)

Here's the thing about Nathan – he tries his damnedest to be a better man. He's been on the receiving end of more than a few snap judgments in his life, and he knows better than most that what you see ain't always what you get out of a person (he always has to struggle not to use Ezra as the perfect example of what he's talking about). And he's proud of his working roots, and how he still uses the same old metal needles his grandma gave him when he was 5 years old and too busy for anybody's good (though, truth be told, he doesn't use those needles that much anymore, not when he got a set of precision engineered ones a few Christmases ago). He takes pride in the fact that he's not a snob in any sense of the word – and because he ain't a snob, he'll work with all kinds of yarn, even the horrible, cheap, nasty, scratchy, tough, splitty, smelly, tangled acrylic in the eye-searingly bright colors that squeaks when he knits with it and scratches his really nice wood needles and keeps ending up in his stash. 

It's the kind of yarn that, no matter what pattern he tries, makes every single damn hat, or scarf, or pair mittens knit out of it look like a clown threw up and then exploded all over some innocent garment, and it pills terribly, and will likely survive any number of disasters that don't involve open flames. 

It's the kind of yarn that's perfect for the homeless man on the corner, who needs something warm in the winter, and for pet beds for the animal shelter, and hard wearing sweaters for his nieces and nephews who are just as busy and troublesome as he was at their age. 

Everything has a place and a purpose, even the terrible, horrible, squeaky yarn. 

He just wishes Rain would stop buying so damn much of it.


	39. Josiah, happy hooker (knit!Fic, gen, ATF!AU)

Josiah waits until Nathan's attention is mostly on the game they're watching before he rather ostentatiously breaks out his crochet hook and granny square. The mature, sensible part of him knows that it's beyond childish to bait Nathan like this – though he won't ever admit it, Nathan has Views on knitting and crocheting, and it's never nice to force a man to experience cognitive distress. 

On the other hand, Josiah knows that he's the kind of man who takes deep pleasure in simple things, and the joy he gets out of the twitching of Nathan's eye as he watches Josiah calmly crochet his way around the square is a one of the deepest pleasures in his life. 

"I do believe," Josiah says once he's sure he's got all of Nathan's surreptitious attention, "that there's nothing better than crocheting with cashmere."

It takes a supreme force of will to keep himself from out right guffawing at the full body shudder that goes through Nathan. 

"That…that ain't going towards the dog blanket, is it?" Nathan asks, in the voice of a man who knows he's going to regret opening his big mouth but is doing so anyway. 

"Of course not," Josiah says placidly as he starts the next round. "I'm makin' myself a sweater."

"Ah," Nathan says, and Josiah counts under his breath as he waits for the inevitable, "you know it'd look better knit."

"Hmm." Josiah says. He holds the square away from him and eyes it critically. He's never quite sure how much lacework he can put into a garment for Hannah, but he's thinking a pineapple motif might be just on the right side of acceptable. 

"And it'd take less yarn," Nathan adds, going straight for the big guns. His hands are twitching like he wants to rip the crochet hook away. "I can lend you knitting needles. It ain't hard to do."

"I do know how to knit, Nathan," Josiah says. 

"Then why do you crochet?!" Nathan nearly wails. 

"Because," Josiah says, beaming beatifically at Nathan, "I am a happy hooker."


	40. Nathan and the acrylic scarf (knit!fic, gen, ATF!AU)

Of all the things that Nathan's made over the years, the acrylic scarf he made for Ezra is the only one that makes him really cringe.

It's not that it's a bad scarf, as such. It's in Ezra-approved colors, and it's just a simple garter stitch with no bells or whistles. It's almost exactly the same as the scarves he's made for the other fellas over the years when they started complaining about the cold and wouldn't shut up about the knitting. Hell, back then, Ezra was actually the best of them at not poking fun about his knitting, and if anybody would know how to take care of a bespoke wool garment, it'd be Ezra. 

It's just…

Well, here's the thing. 

Ezra was the best at not poking fun about the knitting, but that wasn't because he understood the importance of maintaining a link to one's ancestors and the value of handmade objects, or because he thought it perfectly all right for a straight man to engage in some therapeutic knitting. No, the only reason Ezra'd been silent was because he'd still been fronting with them back then, not letting anyone see who he really was, and Nathan'd thought he was as cold and slippery and wily as a greased pig in a mud pit. And so when Nathan had started the annual "shut up about the cold" knitting for the team, he'd made the executive decision that it wasn't worth it to knit Ezra something out of the nice part of his stash – the man wouldn't appreciate it and anyway at that point he thought it wasn't like Ezra'd be around come Christmas and he could just give the scarf away to a homeless shelter. 

Of course, how could he have known that Ezra's mask would drop – just for a second – when he opened the gift, and that Nathan would get a glimpse of the kind of man Ezra really was; the kind of man rendered speechless by an act of simple generosity? Or that Ezra would wear the damn thing every day that winter and every day the next winter, and the winter after that, and that when the damn thing finally got a hole after it got snagged on a nail during a rather epic episode of hot pursuit that Ezra would bring it to him and ask him to mend it, instead of just throwing the damn thing away.

It makes Nathan twitch, now, to see Ezra wearing it, as it reminds him of how he failed, once, at being a better man, and he longs to snatch it from around Ezra's neck and burn it so that he won't have to face his own failings. He longs, too, to knit Ezra a better scarf, one of nice, lofty, soft, cushy wool that will better express the friendship he now feels for Ezra. 

'Course, knowing Ezra as he does now, knowing the man who lurks behind the mask Ezra still wears, he's pretty sure the first thing Ezra will do is complain about how it itches.


End file.
